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WESTERN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 



Educational Agriculture. 



BY 

JOSIAH MAIN, 

(B. S. in Agriculture, A. M. in Education.) 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, 

WESTERN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, 

HAYS, KANSAS. 




Vol. II, No. 3. 

Issued Quarterly by the Western State Normal School. 



HAYS, KANSAS. 

September, 1910. 



Entered March 23, 1909, at Hays. Kansas, as second-class matter, 
under act of July 16, 1894. 



Wonoeno: 






Copyright, 1910, by JosiAH Main. 



All rights reserved. 



©Ci.At<?75792 



/ 
/ 



Foreword. 



The following discussion was prepared with a conviction 
that the field of high-school agriculture is at the present time 
the most important division of the subject of agricultural 
education, because the proper fixing of the upper and lower 
limits of that division will largely determine the work of the 
elementary and higher institutions. The fixing of these limits 
must be after a pretty full discussion, which, it is hoped, will 
excuse the length of what is here presented. But the chief 
merit claimed for this treatment is not that it solves the prob- 
lem of secondary agriculture, but that it breaks the subject 
into logical units, each of which may be dealt with separately. 

In reverting to psychology for a solution of the problem, the 
writer believes he has made clear the fact that he is not a 
psychologist. The aim was to challenge the so-called "science 
of education" to justify its existence by the performance of a 
useful, and at present much-needed, service. 

Having resolved the discussion into a treatment of second- 
ary agriculture, it should be explained that the school in mind 
is not an agricultural school in any sense or degree other than 
that in which any high school with a rural environment or a 
rural constituency should be agricultural. The vocation of 
agriculture should be represented in the education of every 
young person so conditioned, and the advantage of such a 
training is greatest with the youth who comes daily from a 
farm where diversified agriculture is practiced and a commu- 
nity far enough removed from urban influences to be compelled 
to supply most of its avocations and pleasures — a condition 
in which rural life is not simply tolerated but cherished for its 
own sake. This is regarded as a great civic problem. 

The diversified character of the contents is such as should 
appeal to the pedagogue, the legislator and the administrator 
of school affairs, and the school patron. But the layman may 
find it most satisfactory to read the discussion backward from 
the last page toward the first as far as his interest may con- 
tinue. JosiAH Main. 

Hays, Kan., September la, 1910. 



4 Western State Normal. 

If pedagogy or education is to be permanently ranked among the 
sciences it must find data in addition to that furnished by cultural im- 
peratives and psychological investigations. — Carlton* Education and 
Industrial Evolution, p. 18. 

No study is worthy of a place in our program which has not com- 
manded the full devotion of some master mind. All students must be 
introduced to the same civilization, and since all are human, their sev- 
ei-al ways of approaching it will not be fundamentally different. — E. E. 
Brown: The Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 440. 

The accustomed methods of education are less applicable to the 
fai-mers than to any other people. . . . The greatest of the unsolved 
problems of education is how to reach the farmer. He must be reached 
on his own gi'ound. . . . We have failed to reach the farmer effect- 
ively because we still persist in employing old-time and academic 
methods. — Bailey: The Nature-study Idea, p. 62. 

New and fvmdamental concepts regarding educational principles are 
now needed which square with centralized and systematized industry, 
subdivision of labor, large urban populations, increase in the number of 
laboring population, the growth of organized labor, dissimilar popula- 
tions, enlarged governmental activities, and a democratic form of govern- 
ment. When our public-school system was devised only one of these con- 
ditions — the latter one — was in existence. — Carlton: Education and 
Industrial Evolution, p. 13. 

Experience in teaching, covering several years in graded-school work, 
in an academy, and in a normal school, leads to the conviction that no 
subject requires more sound knowledge of the principles of pedagogy 
than does the subject of agriculture.- — Abbey: Normal School Instruc- 
tion in Agriculture (0. E. S. Circular 90, p. 9). 

The training of teachers for the group of subjects embraced under 
the term "agriculture" cannot be isolated from other training. It is not 
alone a question of giving the teachers the necessary technical knowl- 
edge and skill in agricultural subjects, but also of providing training and 
experience in methods of teaching and in developing a point of view and 
a right estimate of education in general. There is great danger in the 
technical teaching of agriculture, even though it be well taught, if the 
teacher is not also well grounded in the social and pedagogical principles 
and problems involved in all education; and any such irrelevant or 
unrelated teaching will in the end react disastrously on the very move- 
ment that it is intended to promote. — Bailey: On the Training of Per- 
sons to Teach Agriculture in the Public Schools, p. 9. 

The great fault and failing in our education is that we have foolishly 
assumed that education for culture's sake would necessarily and mechan- 
ically secure efficiency, and when it did not, we have again foolishly and 
hastily assumed that there is something about industrial activity that is 
antagonistic if not fatal to culture. So we have surrendered the in- 
dustrial people, as such, to a hard life of toil, barren of the better things 
of life, hoping only to deliver as many as possible from their fate, as 
brands snatched from the burning. Refusing to be delivered over in this 
way, the industrial people are proceeding to set up a system of education 
of their own over against the old, with the very natural but fatal defect 
of sneering at culture, surrendering everything to present needs. It is 
for educators to come to the rescue and put something of culture into 
industrial training or else to graft industrial training upon our school 
system, producing a kind of education adapted to turn out people that 
are both efficient and cultured. — Davenport: Education for Efficiency, 
p. 96. 



Contents. 



PART I. Introduction. 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. Limitations of the field as a realm of knowledge 7 

PART II. Organization. 

II. Motives 19 

III. Genetic psychology as an aid in organization 21 

IV. The kinaesthetic factor in apperception; reaction and inhibi- 

tion 26 

V. A problem in adjustment; position of the various sciences. ... 30 

VI. Formal discipline and its transfer 34 

VII. Humanistic science, applied science, and agriculture 36 

VIII. Agricultural arts; habit vs. judgment 39 

IX. Collateral or extra-program agriculture 41 

X. The seasonal order of presentation 44 

XI. Other correlated subjects 46 

XII. Retardation; admission, graduation and accrediting of stu- 

dents 47 

PART III. Equipment. 

XIII. The laboratory 51 

XIV. Plots and grounds 61 

XV. Agricultural literature 65 



(5) 



Part I.— Introduction. 



Chapter I. 

LIMITATIONS OF THE FIELD AS A REALM OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Limitations of materials used in nature study, science, and agricul- 
ture. — Nature study sets itself no limitations as to the natural materials 
which it shall use, so long as they are in their natural relations. But 
little legs cannot carry students of the nature-study age very far from 
home, and materials sent from a distance have the defect of being out of 
their natural setting. From these facts it results that nature study is 
environmental and its materials mainly agricultural with suburban or 
rural pupils. 

Biology sets itself no limitations as to the organisms it shall use, so 
long as each is typical of its class and so long as each class is properly, 
but not unduly, represented. Some classes are necessarily not repre- 
sented locally and so we must needs send to Texas for scorpions and to 
Woods Hole for starfishes. However, convenience and economy as well 
as utilitarian ideals operate to make biology somewhat environmental 
in character by the utilization of types that the locality furnishes. 

The physical sciences acknowledge no local obligations from the the- 
oretical standpoint, since they do not deal with objects or organisms that 
have any relation to struggle, selection, survival, or environment. But 
they do have artificial limitations in their application to the arts and in- 
dustries and in their relative ease or difficulty of demonstration. To 
overcome these limitations instructors are put to some trouble and schools 
to considerable expense in order to demonstrate processes and phenomena 
that are not familiar through experiences of the pupils. However, the 
increasing applications of principles of chemistry and physics in every- 
day life, and the desire of the most progressive schoolmen to utilize in 
the laboratory those principles which the pupil may find operating in his 
environment, are making the physical sciences more and more environ- 
mental, as witness the omission of that phase of physics included under 
the name of astronomy from the high-school courses of to-day. 

Agriculture itself sets as a limitation the requirement that in the 
choice of materials and processes only those having economic importance 
for good or evil shall be studied. But the rapid development of the sci- 
ence and the increasing utilization of species and principles which a 
former generation would never have thought of as having any agri- 
cultural significance compel the student of agriculture, in anticipation 
of his future needs, to consider, more and more, matters which belong to 
the broader fields of science. 

The result of these separate tendencies in the separate fields of nature 
study, agriculture and general science is to unify these subjects, and 

(7) 



8 Western State Normal. 

unification in education always means economy. This unification does 
not apply to the ideals of these subjects. In fact, the closer they are 
brought together the more determined are the sponsors for each that 
their separate ideals shall be preserved inviolate and uncompromised. 
And this is right; nature study should be strictly cultural, agriculture 
strictly economic, and science strictly scientific. The value of each de- 
pends upon its maintaining its peculiar virtue. On this proposition each 
of the interests "stands pat," whatever it may demand of the others. 
Therefore, whatever advantage of unity education may expect of them 
should be on the basis of their community of interests — the common 
stock of materials with which they are, or should be, concerned. 

The true relation of nature study, science and agriculture. — In the 
previous development of this nature group of subjects and their peda- 
gogical location in the course, a linear relation of them in the order 
cultural, economic, and scientific, has been given, because, genetically, 
they succeed one another in that order in individual development, and this 
dictates the order of their presentation in the schools. Culture pertains 
to the past, economy belongs to the present, and science faces the future. 
Whatever the dictionary may say, the words carry that significance. Ad- 
mitting it does not mean that there is any legitimate way of putting 
culture behind one, other than by experiencing it, nor that all of the 
science of the future will always remain in the future. So we put nature 
study and the school garden, which belong to the cultural past, in the 
primary and intermediate grades. We consider agriculture, as it is prac- 
ticed in the economic present, in the grammar grades, and science in the 
scientific future for which the high school prepares. How then may 
unity be gotten into a matter that is so marked off and distributed? 

It will be noted that in going from the nature-study stage of the lower 
grades to the agricultural stage of the grammar grades we do not go to 

Before the sixth grade, or its equivalent, there should probably be no 
agriculture as such. Generalized nature study should here control the 
work. This will underlie and prepare for all future work. It will be a 
mistake to try to force formal technical agricultural work in any grade 
below the high school. — Bailey: On the Training of Persons to Teach 
Agriculture, etc., p. 14. 

After the explicit nature study ceases with the fifth grade, the pupil 
in the rural school may then be taken through the elements of agri- 
culture in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The work in these three 
grades should really be nature study, but agricultural subjects are the 
means. Some will prefer to call it nature study rather than agriculture. 
Its purpose is not so much to teach definite science as to bring the pupil 
into relation with the objects and affairs that are concerned with the 
agriculture of his region. When the pupil has completed his nature 
study in the fifth grade, he should have a good knowledge of the physi- 
ography of his region, and of the common animals and plants. He will 
then be able to carry his inquiries into the more specific field of the agri- 
cultural practice and operations. When he has completed his eighth 
year he should have a well-developed sympathy with agricultural affairs, 
and he should have a broad general view of them. Entering the high 
school, he will then be able to take up some of the subjects in their dis- 
tinctly scientific phases. — N. E. A. Committee on Industrial Education in 
Rural Schools, pp. 44-45. 



Educational Agriculture. 9 

a new and unfamiliar mass of materials but only change our attitude 
toward the same matters that had before engaged our attention. Simi- 
larly, in passing from the economic to the scientific we merely change 
our attitude. We cannot put off our culture as pioneers following par- 
allels of latitude may have done temporarily in the settlement of this 
country, only to be pursued and overtaken and bound fast by it, for we 
are not following parallels of latitude. In assuming the economic atti- 
tude we turn at right angles to our former position and face the same 
materials from a new aspect. 

Ordinarily, in the development of a subject it is necessary to have 
regard for a linear sequence only, though the work may be cumulative 
and the later stages assume a knowledge of all that has preceded, or at 
most the change of attitude is gradual. In this subject it seems necessary 
for the delimitation of the different phases that these changes of aspect 
be abrupt and at right angles. While it is possible to develop either of 
these subjects without regard to either of the others, the ideal of an agri- 
cultural or scientific education which has regard for a child as a future 
citizen rather than as a poet, money-maker or scientist must consider 
the necessity of all three factors. And the educator who is presenting 
any phase of the subject cannot deal justly with his pupils if he have not 
an instinctive regard for the previous aspects of his pupils toward the 
materials with which he is working. 

Graphic representation of three dimensioTis. — When a product is made 
from three factors it may be graphically represented by a rectangular 
solid, the three dimensions of the solid standing for the three factors. In 
the nature group the common mass of subject matter may be represented 
by the solid, its three dimensions being the cultural, the economic and the 
scientific factors. This figure implies the essential relationship of the 
three subjects, nature study, agriculture and science, namely, that they 
are aspects at right angles to each other of a common mass of materials, 
that taking them in a fixed sequence does not relieve the student or 
teacher from the necessity of carrying all three factors in mind, or such 
of them as have been previous objects of study (an obligation that the 
teacher especially should regard) , and that proficiency in one does not 
imply any degree of proficiency in the others. 

high-School scienceSiS years 









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Fig. 1. 



10 



Western State Normal. 



In the rectangular solid, abed, (fig. 1) representing the common mass of 
materials, let ab stand for the scientific dimension, be the economic dimen- 
sion, and cd the cultural dimension, the solid assuming definite shape only 
as the three organizing factors are applied to it, to prove that the difficulty 
that schoolmen have in organizing this material is due to their inability 
to think in three dimensions. 

To be able to teach any subject requires that the teacher have and 
impart an intelligent attitude toward the subject. For the subject matter 

, ^ . . - ^o remain in confusion in 

the teacher's mind means 
that he cannot teach it to 
others, so that in viewing 
the mass, abed, from his 
/ cultural standpoint the 
teacher of nature study, 
for instance, instinctively 
organizes it on the cultural 
dimension — using the term 
cultural to signify those 
needs that are neither 
present nor anticipated 
material necessities. What 









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SCIENTIFIC 

Fig. 2. 



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Texas cattle tick x^*/^ 



this plan of organization in the case of nature study should be is a matter 
that has never gotten into the books, and some nature-study people insist 
that it never shall, since no two of them organize in the same way, and be- 
cause it is spiritual and embalming properly comes only after the spirit 
has departed; in other words, they do not want the subject killed by or- 
ganization, thus leaving it to each teacher to organize it according to the 
needs of each particular ^^ ^ 

case but agreeable to rec- /'''C^ 

ognized general principles. 
No further discussion of 
the organization on the 
cultural dimension will, - 
therefore, be essayed, 
other than to call atten- 
tion to the mathematical 
fact that this dimension is 
as important to the solid 
as is either of the others, . 
and the educational fact 
that if it be allowed to 
diminish to zero the entire volume becomes zero for educational purposes. 
It should also be noted that after the nature-study stage of development 
of the child is passed and the economic and scientific stages are in turn 
brought to the focus of attention the cultural purpose should be in- 
cidental. 

When the scientific aspect (fig. 2) is approached organization is spon- 
taneous and the whole mass crystallizes into perfect laminae with planes 
of cleavage at right angles to the scientific dimension in a manner com- 







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Fig. 3. 



Educational Agriculture. 11 

parable to the behavior of the magnetic needle brought within the in- 
fluence of a current of electricity. On this aspect each lamina stands for 
one of the fundamental sciences, botany, zoology, chemistry, etc., the 
laminae together including the entire mass of the solid. ' 

Coming to the economic aspect (fig. 3), the making of agriculture a 
high-school subject means its organization on the economic dimension, since 
no attempt at organization in the grammar grades, before the details are 
studied analji;ically as pertaining to the fundamental sciences, can have 
more than temporary educational value. 

The latter economic organization has not yet been completed, some 
laminse having been early marked out, as horticulture or animal hus- 
bandry, while other planes of cleavage meet with such obstacles in the 
mass as to warp and bend and obstruct them, and some of the original 
laminae show a tendency to split into numerous subdivisions. 

The educational frontier. — This is now the educational frontier — the 
organization of agriculture as a high-school science on its economic di- 
mension after the analytic study of its materials in the work of the science 
classes. When so organized we will have a science of agriculture and 
every portion of the mass of the solid will lie in a distinct economic plane. 
As it is evident that a perfect organization will never be possible owing 
to the ramifications of certain subjects into other subjects — such, for 
instance, as the matter of fertility — the conception of agriculture as a 
science will always have to allow for inherent imperfections. This neces- 
sity does not obviate that other one of continuing the attempt at organi- 
zation, and science men who are used to the stricter conception of the 
term "science" may do well to tolerate the other usage. Aristotle must 
have had some such condition in mind when he said, "It is affectation to 
try to treat a subject more exactly than its nature permits." 

The function of science is organization, and it requires that everything 
else give way to that purpose. The function of agriculture in the schools 
must be economic, and for that purpose organization is to be regarded as 
a means rather than an end. The love of science may be such as to lead 
the student to abandon the economic purpose for the scientific at some 
place where the pursuit of the former leads to a point from which open 
out attractive fields of scientific study, which is frequently the case with 
students in the agricultural colleges. It is therefore much to be desired 
that the economic be given its due share of attractiveness in the high 
school, that a portion of its pupils be safely guided from the economic 
phase of the subject as presented in the grammar grades, through the 
analytic stages as considered in connection with the high-school sciences, 
to the synthetic treatment in the later part of the high-school work. 

Bringing materials within the solid for organization. — When com- 
pletely organized as suggested in previous paragraphs, the place of every 
fact, principle and organism is as definitely determined as may be the 
latitude, longitude and altitude of Mount McKinley. Thus organized, 
some things of high value in one aspect will be of low value in another. 
The art of directing the high-school work in agriculture and science is to 
utilize matter that is of high value in as many different aspects as pos- 
sible, taking care that such subjects as are of little value for one purpose 
have their existence in the work justified by a high value for some other 



12 Western State Normal. 

purpose. And it will be necessary in the treatment of the different 
phases of this nature group of materials to utilize in the development of 
each phase of it certain matters that have no value whatever in the treat- 
ment of either one or both of the other phases. Thus Huxley's crayfish, 
which is a vertebrate turned inside out and upside down and hind end 
before, stands high in the scientific purpose as a means of distinguishing 
between the essential and the nonessential in animal structure, as an ex- 
ample of the success of a type of structure that contradicts erroneous 
ideas that may exist in the student's mind gained from the teachings of 
the ordinary texts on human anatomy and physiology. Our method of 
graphic representation would have to indicate such a fact as lying out- 
side the common mass of materials, though still in its proper place in 
the scientific plane. Similarly, the pussy willow and alfalfa, which may 
rank high in their respective cultural and economic planes, may be en- 
tirely outside the common mass. In such cases as these, correlation 
must give way to the needs of the particular subject under considei-ation. 
But these exceptions are not so common as teachers of high-school science 
have heretofore seemed to think. 

As an example of a compromise that illustrates the matter under con- 
sideration, no better illustration could be found than BoopJiilus annulatus, 
which, besides being typical of a large class of animals, is valuable scien- 
tifically for the study of its life history and as a typical parasite. Other 
examples may be as good for these purposes; but when we discover that 
B. armulatus is none other than the Texas cattle tick that costs the state 
of Tennessee eleven million dollars annually and the other Southern 
states correspondingly, such school as may procure this organism may do 
well to have regard for its economic significance by utilizing it for purely 
scientific study. Similarly, in the study of entomology, the corn plant 
alone furnishes good examples of five of the seven Linnjean orders, all of 
high economic importance. The same condition exists with regard to 
botanical types. While advanced students of pure science, to be true to 
the ideals of their calling, cannot have regard to the economic importance 

Intrinsically useful materials may just as successfully form the basis 
for the development of ideals as intrinsically useless materials. That 
the student of engineering or agriculture or commerce does not always 
acquire the ideals that mark the cultured and refined "gentleman" is not 
the fault of the subject-matter, but rather of the method. — Bagley: 
The Educative Process, p. 221. 

The nature of the mind determines what is essential in the educative 
processes, and this without reference to environment. . . . The nature 
of the mind does not determine the choice of material available as the 
source of stimuli for various forms of mental activity and control. 
Material may be employed as the source of stimuli to mental activity and 
be excellent for that purpose while having little or no other value. Other 
material may be employed of equal value for the same purpose and pos- 
sessing further value of a high order as usable knowledge. It is be- 
lieved that no one will take issue with the statement that whenever 
material of the latter kind can be employed that will fully meet the 
needs of the child by furnishing the proper stimuli for desired mental 
activities, it should be employed, and not displaced by that material 
that has a value solely as a source of stimuli but without value as usable 
knowledge. — N. E. A. Committee on Industrial Education in Rural 
Schools (1905), p. 19. 



Educational Agriculture. 13 

of the forms studied, the high-school student of science will have plenty to 
do well within the economic limitation. On the other hand, the teacher 
who is committed to the teaching of the "practical" should not fail to ap- 
preciate the fact that no organism, however insignificant it may be eco- 
nomically, how rare numerically, or how aberrant structurally, but may 
help emphasize the essentials of structure of one that has economic 
significance or which may itself, by changes in environment, come to 
have gi'eat economic significance. 

Trouble with that third dimension. — Some further features of our 
rectangular solid are significant. It is evident that one may pass directly 
from consideration of any aspect of it to the consideration of either of the 
others, so the stv^dent or teacher may pass directly from the consideration 
of nature study to either science or agriculture, or may have an apprecia- 
tion of the latter two without having any conception of the cultural 
significance of the total. These possibilities, namely, the three single 
aspects and the three possible combinations of two of them, none of 
which is sufliicient, explain the diversity of views on the subject similar 
to those entertained by the 

"six men of Indostan 
To learning much inclined, 
• Who went to see the elephant 

(Though all of them were blind). 
That each by observation 
Might satisfy his mind. 

"And so these men of Indostan 

Disputed loud and long. 
Each in his own opinion 

Exceeding stiff and strong, 
Though each was partly in the right, 

And all were in the wrong." 

Generally, that third dimension or its equivalent has been the stumbling 
block of every form of mental endeavor that calls for judgment, from the 
high-school student of solid geometry to the landscape painter who "lacks 
perspective." So general is this defect that the critic of any piece of 
work may fall back upon it when other criticisms are impossible, though, 
rightly conceived, it constitutes the finest test of the artistic tempera- 
ment. And in the case in hand it is a test which many a schoolman fails 
to pass because he can see only one face of the solid. 

There is no field or real knowledge which may not suddenly prove con- 
tributory in a high degree to human happiness and the progress of 
civilization, and therefore acceptable as a worthy element in the truest 
culture. — Eliot: Education for Efficiency, p. 47. 

So intimate are the relations of human beings to the animate and in- 
animate creation that it is impossible to foresee with what realms of 
nature intense human interests may prove to be identified. — Eliot: 
Education for Efficiency, p. 46. 

Any attempt to "cut out" the "impractical" parts invariably results 
in the inefficient functioning of the remainder. Short courses that aim 
to give only the essentials, fifth-rate colleges and normal schools that 
educate you while you wait, are sufficiently damned by their own prod- 
ucts. — Bagley: The Educative Process, p. 233. 



14 Western State Normal. 

Limitations of the nature-study point of vieiv. — We sometimes see the 
nature-study people claiming to have the only correct point of view be- 
cause, as they see it, it is very plain that the whole subject of agriculture 
may be organized on the cultural dimension, and theirs being the first in 
point of time, they are loath to yield to any one else this popular field in 
which they have had such success in the elementary gi-ades. The progress 
from the nature-study stage to the complete organization in all three 
dimensions is a necessary metamorphosis through which some schoolmen 
seem unable to pass. One who cannot get away from the nature-study 
stage cannot organize his knowledge as general science, however much 
it accumulates. Organization implies science. Continued work in nature 
study may result in the accumulation of a vast mass of interesting ma- 
terials and the formation of encyclopedias, but its character as nature- 
study material precludes its unification into science. Its exponents and 
teachers should not and usually do not expect it to aid in the solution of 
the problem of high-school agriculture. Like Maggy in "Little Dorrit," 
it is destined to remain forever "just ten." "When I was a child, I spake 
as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I be- 
came a man, I put away childish things." 

Inadequacy of the economic point of vieiv. — ^We sometimes see the 
agriculturists claiming to have the only point of view from which to or- 
ganize this subject of agriculture in the high school, and they are a very 
formidable set of promoters to cope with, because they know the strength 
of the popular dissatisfaction with the high school and that the hopes of 
its reform are based, to a large degree, on their progress. They also have 
the art of achieving an early seeming success, which they attain by sub- 
stituting for the citizenship ideal — which is slow of attainment and demon- 
stration — the purely economic purpose, which measures the success of 
their plan by dollars and cents and requires just one season and one crop 
to demonstrate. 

Investigations concerning the doctrine of formal discipline have shown 
satisfactorily that unless a subject is consciously ideahzed during the 
period of training in it, by the enlightened enthusiasm of the teacher, 
such acquirements in neatness, accuracy, thoroughness, persistency, etc.. 

To describe without rising to the causes or descending to the conse- 
quences is no more science than merely and simply to relate a fact of 
which one has been a witness. — Guyot. 

There is a stage in mental development, above the empirical stage 
and below the philosophical, which may be called the scientific. — E. E. 
Brown: The Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 3. 

If a child at any particular epoch in his development is compelled to 
repeat any fixed form of action belonging to a lower stage of develop- 
ment, the tendency will be for him to stop at that point, and it will be 
difficult, if not impossible, to get him up onto a higher plane. . . . 
Thoroughness in the pursuit of any study in the elementary school may 
result in cessation instead of promotion of mental growth. — Harris: 
Educational Creeds of the Nineteenth Century, pp. 39, 40. 

Whenever the study of nature enters upon organization of the whole 
and the pigeonholing of facts in some general scheme it becomes science, 
and in our usage of the term ceases to be nature study. — Coulter and 
Patterson: Practical Nature Study, p. 17. 



Educational Agriculture. 15 

as it affords the pupil will be of little value to him in the pursuit of other 
studies or exercises. The value of formal discipline thus inheres in the 
subject in which the discipline is given, and unless the personal virtues 
exercised in its pursuit are purposely dignified by the teacher such sub- 
ject is inadequate for the purposes of general education. This fact 
makes it incumbent upon the teacher who would make agriculture a 
culture subject, without which its educational value will be limited, to 
ideahze it. Were the purpose merely to impart valuable information 
and drill in correct practices, the instruction would not call for such 
idealization. In this matter the work in agriculture in the agricultural 
school may essentially differ from that of the regular high school, whose 
ideal is the highest type of citizenship. Thus it is that the culture factor 
must be carried along with the economic to the end of the course, and 
thus it is written that "man shall not live by bread alone." 

When the grammar grades have done their whole duty in the teach- 
ing of agriculture the only thing left for the high school to do in the 
matter is to raise it to the rank of a science. This involves the scientific 
consideration of every feature that is to have a place in the science of 
agriculture as the high school shall attempt to organize it. The only 
technical difficulties in the study of agriculture are scientific difficulties. 
This analysis is, therefore, best provided for in the regular science classes 
of the first three years of the high-school course. The advantage to the 
fundamental sciences of the utilization of agricultural materials is a 
matter of vital importance to the sciences themselves which will be dealt 
with elsewhere. 

Unless this scientific treatment of such features as are related to the 
fundamental sciences is done, agriculture can no more become a high- 
school subject than a stream can rise higher than its source, and its ex- 
tension into the high school will bring discredit upon it as well as upon 
the high school that attempts it, for no high-school student who has 
average mental powers and the average respect for them will be at- 
tracted by a subject that is kept in its elementary stage. But after an 
analytic treatment of details as a part of the regular science work this 
subject may be erected into a science by the synthesis of details, pre- 
viously treated analytically, with the general principles which involve 
the art of agriculture. 

Tyranny of the scientific point of view. — We sometimes see the scien- 
tists claiming to have the only possible system of organization because 

The most generally valuable elements of the environment having been 
introduced into the elementary curriculum, there is not as much need for 
a large body of prescribed elements in the secondary curriculum. The 
basic representativeness of the elementary course, more than the age 
and nature of the adolescent pupils, allows election in the high school. — 
Heck: Mental Discipline and Educational Values, p. 138. 

The highest type of spontaneous, whole-souled activity cannot be de- 
veloped about trifling or worthless things. — Hodge: Nature Study and 
Life, p. 23. 

It is . . . the business of secondary education to raise all subjects 
which it touches to the plane of science, by bringing all into the point of 
view of organizing principles. — E. E. Brown: The Making of Our 
Middle Schools, p. 4. 



16 Western State Normal. 

that is the peculiar function of science — to organize. So much do the 
cultural and economic organizations suffer from comparison with the 
scientific organization that the passage of an economic plane of cleavage, 
for instance, at right angles to the scientific, has the effect of polarizing 
all the light from that aspect, resulting in diminished lucidity or even 
extinction. Through such incomprehensible masses as marketing, stock 
judging, silos, manures, or forage crops, their planes of cleavage refuse 
to cut. Such persons are, of course, not suited to teach the subject of 
agriculture in its synthetic form as an organized science. And when 
one considers the application to agricultural purposes and the use of 
agricultural materials that is intended to be a feature of the work in 
elementary physics, physical geography, botany, zoology, and chemistry, 
he will be forced to conclude that such insistence on scientific perfection 
is inconsistent with the use of such subject matter. For in all the high- 
school work the agricultural pabulum must consist largely of "rough- 
age," not only from local necessity but from preference as well, for 
roughage is a necessary concomitant of the "horse sense" which is a 
cherished object of agriculture in the high school. 

Concerning teachers. — By common consent the necessary preparation 
for the high-school teacher of any subject includes university or collegiate 
training in his specialty, and this necessity can in no other subject be 
greater than in the teaching of agriculture. The greatest fault peculiar 
to such teachers is apt to be the lack of appreciation of the cultural value 
of this subject, owing to the fact that culture is deep-seated and must 
antedate the collegiate training of the teacher. 

The greatest fault of the scientist will be his inability to gather to- 
gether into synthetic unity the dissociated bits of the subject, granted 
that he has done his duty by it in the regular science work preceding 
its organization. He may also be found unwilling to concede that the 
knowledge of nature as pi'esented in the high-school sciences is, first, 
for the purpose of improving on nature, and secondly, for the formation 
of a foundation for the superstructure of philosophy, and that both may 
be attained by one process. 

Sometimes it seems that scientists think that they have the right of 
way in the subjects which they espouse; but there is more than one way 
of interpreting nature. — Bailey: The Nature-study Idea, p. 94. 

The degree of scholarship required for secondary teachers is by com- 
mon consent fixed at a collegiate education. — Report of the "Committee 
of Fifteen," N. E. A., 1895. 

The teacher who is preparing for high-school work in agriculture 
has a fairly definite and limited field, and he can prepare himself con- 
cretely. The field is essentially a natural-science field. The high-school 
teacher of agriculture should be as well grounded in the science and 
practice of his subject as the teacher of physics or chemistry or botany is 
in his field. He should, in fact, have a deeper and broader training, 
since he must use physics, chemistry, botany and the like in his special 
agricultural work. For many years to come the natural-science teacher 
will probably be obliged to handle the agricultural work in many high 
schools that introduce the subject. . . . We may hope that eventually 
the teaching of the natural sciences may be so vital and applicable that 
these sciences may constitute a part of a real course in agriculture. — 
Bailey: Training for Teachers of Agriculture, p. 10. 



Educational Agriculture. 17 

The disadvantage that the nature-study enthusiast will labor under 
as a teacher will be his inability to appreciate the whole subject as a 
high-school subject; to realize that no subject has ever gotten into the 
high school from below; that so long as the race is advancing and 
"ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" educationally, subjects will, as here- 
tofore, be handed down from above. 

And the greatest fault of the teacher whose principal qualification for 
the agricultural work is that he was "reared on a farm" is that his 
stock of agricultural knowledge will usually be found largely composed 
of things that ought, for the good of agriculture, to have been forgotten 
long ago. 



2— ED. AGR. 



Part II.— Organization. 



Chapter II. 

MOTIVES. 

A discussion of agricultural pedagogy properly begins with a con- 
sideration of motives. These might be classified as racial, moral (national) 
and economic (individual) — these divisions being indistinct and over- 
lapping. The most patent motive and the present strength of the move- 
ment for agricultural instruction in the schools is the last. Hence, as 
a reform, the propaganda has been largely in the hands of the agricul- 
turists. 

Educators should realize the great racial and moral significance of 
the reform and put it on a higher plane than the purely economic. The 
attainment of the racial and national motives will in no way interfere 
with the economic, and being of a higher order will aid in the idealization 
of the vocation as it should be idealized to be worthy of a place in an 
educational system. 

The racial need of this reform may be appreciated by one who con- 
siders the changed mode of life which we lead as compared with that 
which the race led during the ages when natural selection was molding 
the minds and bodies of our ancestors into the form which they have 
transmitted to us. The proper balance between physical and mental work 
should be restored, particularly with children of school age. Bodily 
preservation is of prime importance, as the most hopeless ruin is bodily 
ruin. School practices are often personally and racially dangerous, re- 
sulting in school-bred diseases and few offspring for what should be the 
best selected portion of each generation. 

Industrial education is the natural corrective for this condition, agri- 
culture being especially valuable as the oldest, most general and most 
permanent vocation. Artificially made exercises will always be inade- 

The senescence of the original American stock is already seen in 
abandoned farms and the infecundity of graduates.^ — Hall: Adoles- 
cence, p. xvi. 

I would pvit industrial education into the schools, not altogether be- 
cause it is demanded, but because it is an essential part of a system of 
education that aims at racial development. — Davenport: Education for 
Efficiency, p. 49. 

We must be willing to stop short of the highest possible scholarship in 
our American schools, if that last finish of scholarly excellence cost never 
so little of the real vigor of American life. The life is more than learn- 
ing. — E. E. Brown: The Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 454. 

It seems quite clear that luxury and "culture" lead almost invariably 
in a few generations to degeneracy. The history of this republic offers 
hundreds of conspicuous examples of this phenomenon. History teaches. 

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20 Western State Normal. 

quate because they lack incentive. The economic motive, while not 
ranking highest with the educator, often makes the strongest appeal 
to the pupil and should be utilized until the higher may be inculcated. 
The national motive pertains to instruction in the conservation of 
natural resources, which will naturally fall to the agricultural course. 
As a nation of despoilers we have carried this habit over from natural 
wealth to the fields of business and politics, and it thus becomes of great 
moral significance. If our country is to remain prosperous and wealthy, 
as we all hope it may, we are in great danger of running the usual cycle 
of leisure, luxury, decadence and extinction — a series of causes and re- 
sults which summarize the history of many past nations. The best cor- 
rective of this tendency is a permanent connection with our sources of 
strength, through those vocations which are coexistent with racial 
progress. The success of the economic purpose insures us the necessary 
prosperity. The others should aim to put on the brakes, that prosperity 
may prove a permanent blessing. 

that the hope of a nation lies in the masses. If they are weaklings and 
degenerates, decay inevitably follows. — Carlton: Education and In- 
dustrial Evolution, p. 316. 

In the past nations and races have unceasingly passed through a cycle 
which led finally to degeneracy, decay and subjection to stronger, more 
virile, because more primitive, races. In the United States the enormous 
increase in wealth and the enlargement of the leisure class, especially in 
the case of the weaker sex, indicate that this nation is reaching a place 
in her national history which, if she is to follow the cycle traced by older 
nations, presages national degeneration. — Carlton: Education and In- 
dustrial Evolution, p. 17. 

A great need of modern industrial society is intellectual pleasures. — 
Eliot: Education for Efficiency, p. 39. 

The purpose of a vocation is to gain time for avocation; . . . the 
aim of labor is leisure. The things that our labor produces would not 
interest us indefinitely, or perhaps greatly, if they were not exchange- 
able for leisure or if they did not contribute to the enjoyment of leisure. 
. . . We do not ask a man to provide an economic basis for somebody 
else's leisure, for the exercise of someone else's powers of reflection and 
creation, but for his own. . . . Vocational training ought not to be 
included in the six years that are sufficient for the elementary school 
courses. — Butler: Training for Vocation and for Avocation, Educa- 
tional Review, December, 1908, pp. 471, 472. 



Chapter III. 

GENETIC PSYGHOLOGY AS AN AID IN ORGANIZATION. 

While the proper organization of the nature group of subjects, in- 
cluding nature study, agriculture and the natural sciences, is perhaps 
the most difficult educational problem of the generation, there is no new 
kind of pedagogy peculiar to agriculture. The same principles govern 
in the organization of this as of any other subject in the curriculum. 
The only way to find out what these principles are is by investigation 
into the development of the human mind from the earliest years until 
maturity, and this constitutes the science of genetic psychology. 

Broadly speaking, this order of development is relatively fixed with 
regard to the entire human species. Nerve centers have a well known 
sequence in the order of their development and appropriate exercise, 
and the ignoring of the latter constitutes the greatest waste. And these 
underlying laws are independent of our particular aim in education. 
Having determined what they are, the educator is subject to them so 
far as they apply in the utilization of subject matter, and hence may 
place nothing in the course of training arbitrarily. He may not always 
be sure what these principles are, but if there be science of education it 
is its duty to find them. Any blind devotion to traditional educational 
practices is a deliberate confession of our ignorance of the way in which 
the human mind develops. 

Genetic psychology is but a phase of the broader subject of evolution, 
which conceives man as having come up from the world fauna "out of 
great tribulation" and with the ineradicable marks of the struggle, se- 
lection, and survival upon him and his children. No race that has been 
able to evade the struggle has ever developed to a very high stage of 
civilization. And starting from a state in which he represents the 

The laws that underlie the educative process are largely independent 
of the ultimate end of education. — Bagley: The Educative Process, 
p. 40. 

Attention must be called to the fact that much of our devotion to 
traditional educational practices is nothing more or less than a deliberate 
confession of our ignorance of the way in which the human mind de- 
velops. — Judd: Psychology, p. 370. 

The former age, in which all thought that trades must be established 
by bounties and prohibitions; that manufacturers needed their materials 
and qualities and prices to be prescribed, and that the value of money 
could be determined by law, was an age which unavoidably cherished the 
notions that a child's mind could be made to order; that its powers were 
to be imparted by the schoolmaster; that it was a receptacle into which 
knowledge was to be put and there built up after the teacher's ideal. In 
this era, however, ... we are also beginning to see that there is a 
natural process of mental evolution which is not to be disturbed without 
injury; that we may not force upon the unfolding mind our artificial 
forms; but that psychology also discloses to us a law of supply and de- 
mand to which, if we would not do hai-m, we must conform. — Spencer: 
Education, pp. 89, 90. 

Man is also an animal. He has come up from the world-fauna. On 
his way he contended hand to hand with the other animal creation. He 

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22 Western State Normal. 

physiological and psychological condition of his most remote ancestor, 
every child must pass through a series of formal stages that represent 
analogous periods of race history down to the present, thus arriving at 
his individual maturity and joining the ranks of his fellow men only 
after a long infancy fraught with perils to both body and soul. How 
easy it seems to influence the child; yet this formula of his development 
which he inherits is the most permanent thing in the world. This 
permanency is the one thing that makes a science of genetic psychology 
possible. 

Man is bound to his racial progenitors by chains of heredity that he 
cannot break. His environment, which limits his structure where 
heredity does not, is essentially the same as his ancestors', and heredity 
gives him the same set of vital organs. His muscular work may change 
with the progress of civilization, but heredity does n't recognize the 
changed needs and endows him with the same outfit that his hunting 
and fighting and dancing ancestors had, except where modified by natural 
selection. His spiritual needs may differ yet more, but still man "thinks 
with his muscles," and mental development, through the necessity of the 

killed from necessity of obtaining food. As he arose above his contest- 
ants, this necessity became less urgent. — Bailey: The Nature-study 
Idea, p. 108. 

This great process of subjugation, this hand-to-hand fight against 
nature, must have constituted the main line of human nature study 
for thousands, probably for tens of thousands, of years before language 
took form and written history began, and it has formed a large part of 
the work ever since. And how far have vermin, weeds, insects and 
microbes been brought under subjection even now? To what extent this 
phase of struggle and warfare should enter into the course in nature 
study must remain largely a matter for individual parents and teachers 
to decide, but that it has played an important part and fundamental role 
in development of civilization and formation of human character there 
can be no doubt. And it remains as true as ever that character can only 
be developed by struggle, by active, intelligent, patient overcoming of 
difficulties, the elements that achieved success throughout the ancient 
travail of the race. — Hodge : Nature Study and Life, pp. 2, 3. 

Students of biology consider the argument for organic evolution 
especially strong in view of the analogy between race and individual de- 
velopment. The individual in embryo passes through stages which rep- 
resent, morphologically, to a degree, the stages actually found in the 
ancestral animal series. A similar analogy, when inquired into on the 
side of consciousness, seems on the surface true, since we find more and 
more developed stages of conscious function in a series corresponding in 
the main with the stages of nervous growth in the animals; and then we 
find this growth paralleled in its great features in the mental develop- 
ment of the human infant. — Baldwin: Mental Development, p. 14. 

There are no finalities save formulae of development. — Hall : Adol., 
p. viii. 

Strange would it be, indeed, if intelligent and serious attention to 
what the child noiv needs and is capable of in the way of a rich, valuable 
and expanded life should somehow conflict with the needs and possibili- 
ties of later adult life. — Dewey: The School and Society, p. 71. 

It would be utterly contrary to the beautiful economy of nature if one 
kind of culture were needed for the gaining of information and another 



Educational Agriculture. 23 

kinaesthetic factor, is conditioned upon muscular activity. These con- 
ditions being enforced by nature, it behooves the educator to lay hold of 
them and utilize them in his task of developing to their fullest the in- 
herited faculties of the child, for they are the only endowments which 
nature provides the individual for any kind of human achievement. 

But while racial heredity is unalterable except by the slow process of 
natural selection in the case of man — the race having never maintained 
a permanent policy of selective mating — there is one place in which 
heredity leaves a loophole. This loophole, being itself a matter of 
heredity in which man differs from all other species, is the plastic con- 
dition of the nervous organization of each infant whereby it may be 
molded to suit the changed intellectual needs of each generation. Plas- 
ticity and lack of an imposed stock of fixed mental reactions not only 
makes education possible and necessary, but at the same time prevents 
the educational acquirements of one generation, which in the total make 
up its civilization, from being transmitted to the next. Each infant 
starts in life with a "clean slate," and it is only by virtue of a prolonged 
infancy, the natural faculty of imitation and the assistance of others, 
that he approximates the average of his generation in intellectual at- 
tainments. And if- after spending a good part of his life in furthering 
the cause of civilization he perhaps aids in advancing it ever so little, 
his success but increases the educational task imposed upon the next 
generation. The task of education in the promotion of civilization is 
therefore an increasingly difficult one. 

A civilization, according to this conception, cannot be inherited. But 
if its purposes agree with the physical good of the species it may become 
a selective factor resulting in an increasing of the inherited nervous 
plasticity upon which education and civilization depend. That such 
seems to be the case is optimistic, and the increased nervous plasticity 
is evidenced by an increasing capacity for education and a lengthening 
of infancy in which to educate. Precocity, or early maturity, is therefore 
usually an indication of low organization. 

Genetic psychology recognizes these facts and has marked out dis- 
tinct stages of physical and mental development through which all chil- 
dren must pass to reach maturity. These correspond, more or less 
accurately, with ancient periods of racial development that required un- 
told generations for their completion. In his passage through these 
stages the child revives many of the ancient feelings and activities that 
the race had during the corresponding stages, and the wise educator 
puts himself in sympathy with the child by recognizing that the pleasure 
of any experience is proportional to its hereditary directness, and that 

were needed as a mental gymnastic. Everywhere throughout creation 
we find faculties developed through the performance of those functions 
which it is their office to perform ; not through the performance of arti- 
ficial exercises. — Spencer : Education, chap. I, "What Knowledge is 
Most Worth?" 

The mind of a child, in analogy with the physical embryo of an ani- 
mal, recapitulates in a few years the slow evolution of the race, for just 
as the embryo of one of the higher animals in its unfolding is known 
to pass through all the essential stages of development manifested by 
lower orders, so the child in his mental development may be conceived 



24 Western State Normal. 

the pleasurable quality is always necessary to the learning process. The 
art of education consists of selecting, adapting and applying means 
suitable to the various stages of development of the child, and the entire 
regimen of the school should be in recognition of the fact that as function 
precedes structure in the race history it must precede it in education; 
that when the impulse of growth is upon an organ is the time to develop 
or counteract it. 

But since man has elected to be a civilized being he is often com- 
pelled to go against heredity where the tendencies of heredity and 
the ideals of civilization are at variance — to head upstream — and this 
necessity creates most of the educational difficulties. It is incumbent 
upon education to develop acquired interests in addition to native ones. 
Here genetic psychology is of no less value in giving the educator a 
knowledge of what he has to overcome. Though civilization cannot itself 
be transmitted by inheritance, it is based upon hereditary peculiarities — 
the characteristics of plasticity, insatiable curiosity, extreme imitative- 
ness and prolonged infancy. These peculiarities make it possible to 
counteract heredity. 

The most definite thing that can be said about any child is his age. 
The most important thing to consider in prescribing for his educational 
needs is his stage of development. As the latter has a somewhat definite 
relation to the former it is customary and convenient to speak of the 
age when the stage of development is in mind. With this understanding, 
and allowing for individuals who develop at a rate sometimes differing 
several years from the normal one, the relation of age to the most 
distinct stages of development will be shown. 

Genetic psychology recognizes three distinct stages of development 
that come within the legal school age from six to twenty-one. The first 
of these, the transition stage, includes the first two years of school life, 
from the sixth to the eighth birthday; from the eighth to the twelfth 
birthday, approximately, or the third to the sixth grade, inclusive, is 
the development or formative stage; from twelve to the close of legal 
school age is included in the period of adolescence. In other terms, 
the transition stage corresponds to the two primary gi-ades, the develop- 
ment stage to the intermediate gi-ades, and the adolescent stage to the 
grammar and high-school grades. In terms of educational purpose, the 
first stage is when the child acquires his environmental equilibrium, and 
the first two years of school life are required to teach him his insignifi- 
cant place in the world and to put him in possession of his faculties. In 

to have passed throvigh in a short space of time all the great culture 
epochs that have marked the race evolution. — De Carmo: Principles of 
Secondary Education, vol. I, p. 179. 

As structure follows function, experience of function must have been 
first in race history. — Baldwin: Mental Development, p. 64. 

The childhood of the race was very long, and we shovild not wish to 
force its period, brief at best, in the life of the individual. The weather- 
ing of rock and the formation of soil aflFord interesting lessons in modern 
geology; but men dug and planted and established fruitful relations with 
Mother Earth thousands of years before geology was even dreamed of. — 
Hodge: Nature Study and Life, p. viii. 



Educational Agriculture. 



25 



the second he should acquire facts, experiences and habits, and in the 
third he organizes his acquirements into principles and ideals, and armed 
with them he faces his future. 

The accompanying chart shows the relation of age, development, 
grade, and educational purpose, with agriculture projected below so as to 
show the corresponding development of the subject. It will not be the 
purpose herein to further consider that portion of the subject that pre- 
cedes the high-school work. 







Chart I. 








Age. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 


Grade. 


I II 
Primary. 


Ill IV V VI VII 
Intermediate. 


VIII 
Gram- 
mar. 


IX X XI XII 
High school. 


Stage. 


Transition. 


Formative. 


Adolescent. 


Educational 
purpose. 


Environ- 
mental 
equilib. 


Experiences— facts- 
utilities— habits. 


Principles— system— science— ideals. 


Phase of 
subject. 


Nature study— school garden- 
incidental agriculture. 


Local 
agriculture. 


Analytic agr. 
Sciences. 


Synth. 
agr. 

1 


Genetic 
relation. 


Past. 


Present. 


Future-present. 


Character. 


Cultural. 


Economic. 


Scientific-economic. 



The period of adolescence represents the best time for the develop- 
ment of ideals. — Bagley: The Educative Process, p. 223. 

Neither you nor I, however specialized our knowledge, know anything 
really worth knowing the substance of which cannot be taught now if we 
have pedagogical tact. — Hall: Ideal School, p. 485. 

Little children are primarily interested in the common objects of the 
world because of what they can be used for or what they can do; only 
later in life do they become actively interested in the qualities of objects, 
and then only gradually. Among these other attributes they are first 
interested in movements, then in what the thing is made of, and then in 
the parts of which it is made. — Earl Barnes: Studies in Education, 
first series, p. 210, "A Study on Children's Interests." 

Experiences that are gained incidentally in the course of the indi- 
vidual life are much more effective in modifying adjustment than ex- 
periences gained formally for this express purpose. — Bagley: The 
Educative Process, p. 24. 

When we think that nature has thus built up the human brain to the 
level at which civilization was possible, we begin to see the true impor- 
tance of her tuition and to realize that a plan of education that leaves 
"the Old Nurse" in the background is quite likely to fail in laying the 
solid foundations of intelligent human character. It is in danger of 
posing as a system of elementary education with really elementary edu- 
cation left out. — Hodge: Nature Study and Life, p. 25. 



Chapter IV. 



THE KINESTHETIC FACTOR IN APPERCEPTION; REACTION 
AND INHIBITION. 

Among lower organizations, every stimulus causes a motor reaction, 
and "thought is motion." Such motion is automatic and invariable. 
Vital functions among higher organisms are similarly initiated and 
controlled. The spinal cord has such a function of receiving incoming 
sensory stimuli and reflecting them outward toward the muscles as 
motor impulses. But the cord may transmit unusual stimuli onward 
toward the brain — an organ which lower organisms do not possess. 
The result of such stimulation will be, normally, an outward, or motor, 
impulse. With infants this is very variable and results in random 
muscular adjustments. From the muscles and tendons involved in 
these random movements other (strain) stimuli reach the brain while 
the original sensory stimuli which caused the movement are continuing. 

Some of these random movements result in pleasure to the infant by 
gratifying a need. Where such random movements continue, the pleasur- 
able adjustment may recur, and by repetition come to be associated 
with their cause. The ability to bring about a desired adjustment is the 
first evidence of intelligence, and the strain sensations resulting from 
the adjustment constitute "the kinaesthetic factor" in apperception. Its 
fusion in the brain with the sensation from the organs of touch, sight, 
etc., the original cause of the muscular reaction, constitutes apperception. 

Considering the entire process, the incoming sensory, the outgoing 
motor and the conscious or intellectual central member constitute a 
unity which should be retained in education of the young, as the muscles 

The ability to receive impressions and the ability to respond to im- 
pressions by movement have ... all through the animal kingdom a 
parallel development. — Judd: Psychology, p. 18. 

We are acquainted with a thing as soon as we have learned how to be- 
have towards it, or how to meet the behavior which we expect from it. 
Up to that point it is still strange to us. — James: The Will to Believe, 
etc., p. 85. 

Every mental state is a fusion of sensory and motor elements, and any 
influence that strengthens the one, tends to strengthen the other also. — 
Baldwin: Mental Development, p. 440. 

Directly or indirectly, all incoming nervous impulses are transmitted 
to the active organs of the body after being more or less completely 
redirected or partially used to produce structural changes in the nervous 
organs. . . . The sensory, central, and motor processes cannot be 
sharply distinguished from each other; they are all phases of a single 
continuous process, the end of which is always some muscular activity. — 
Judd: Psychology, p. 22. 

James, Hall, Dewey, Mosso, Wundt, Baldwin, and others, are preaching 
a new gospel. They are saying that the child's thought is never dis- 
sociated from his muscles; that every idea has a motor aspect; that mind 
is in one sense a middle term between the senses and the muscles; that it 

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Educational Agriculture. 27 

have the important function of vivifying thought by supplying the neces- 
sary kinaesthetic factor, and the natural tendency of all sensations and 
ideas is to work themselves out in action. 

In recognition of the necessity of the kinaesthetic factor, the school 
should provide the child with the most valuable stock of motor ex- 
periences, to be used in after-life as interpretive of all matters trans- 
mitted to the brain from whatever source. The purpose of elementary 
education should be to stimulate and direct appropriate reactions. In- 
stead, the mistake has often been made of unduly suppressing where it 
should have directed them. 

The value of industrial education in this- connection is to supply the 
pupil of the lower grades with this kinassthetic factor in the making 
of useful adjustments and in learning the nature of the common things 

functions for the purpose of guiding conduct; that an idea is not complete 
until it is realized in action. — O'Shea: Dynamic Factors in Education, 
pp. 27, 28. 

The activity is a unit, and the group of eye, ear, and tactual sensa- 
tions become inextricably bound up in the act, and perhaps come to be 
sjrmbolic of it; the reinstatement of one of the sensations serving to call 
UD the images of the others as it sets up the activity for which it stands. 
The unity in the reference of the sensations comes in on the side of the 
act. . . . If it were not for the connecting activity, there would be 
absolutely no ground on which the senses could be brought together in 
their reference and thus become more than mere undefined modifications 
of the general tonus of consciousness. . . . It is only as something is 
done with the object, and the various senses cooperate in the doing, that 
their unity of reference appears. . . . The child's first objects are 
really certain possible activities that are symbolized by certain sensations 
involved in performing the acts. — King: Psychology of Child Develop- 
ment, pp. 36, 37. 

Every sensory impression shall find its adequate expression not only 
through the vocal organs in speech or song, but also through the hand 
in writing, drawing, moulding, or in the use of tools, apparatus, and 
utensils. In other words ideas must not only be clear, but must also 
become vivid through the appropriate use of the motor system of the 
physical organism; we must have not knowledge alone, but also the skill 
that comes from its application. — PROFESSOR James : Talks to Teachers, 
pp. 33-38. 

Vividness of mental processes is produced by an intensification of 
the motor elements accompanying the process. . . . An increase in 
the intensity of the appropriate motor adjustments increases the stability 
of mental processes. . . 

The inhibitory effect which the suppression of motor activity has upon 
consciousness ... is general. . . . Inhibition of the motor ele- 
ment tends to inhibit consciousness. — Breese: On Inhibition, Psycho- 
logical Review, Monograph No. 11, May, 1899, p. 58. 

Knowing an object requires kinaesthetic as well as auditory or visual 
data concerning it. Indeed, to be precise, knowledge in the true sense 
comes in the back stroke. . • . . Motor activity furnishes consciousness 
with the most impoi'tant elements for psychical development. . . . 
One knows what a thing is after he has reacted upon it, not before. The 
mission of eye and ear is to give us second-hand or inferential knowledge, 
to reinstate former experiences; they cannot give us original, first-hand 
knowledge of many of the vital situations of life. — O'Shea: Dynamic 
Factors in Education, pp. 31, 32. 



28 Western State Normal. 

with which he must deal all of his life and whose names and attributes, 
used metaphorically, are the only vehicles of higher intellectual ideas. 

Throughout life the kinjesthetic factor continues to be the unifying 
element in thought. But with the accumulation of a stock of experi- 
ences, the tendency to interpret new sensations or ideas in the light of 
the old of similar character makes the resulting adjustment more ap- 
propriate though frequently less prompt. This change occurs through- 
out adolescence, but the inhibition of the tendency to prompt reaction 
by_ no means obviates the necessity that every idea issue in some kind 
of action. Nor should the appropriate inhibition be destructive of the 
kinaesthetic factor, since the latter may result from the strain sensation 
due to muscular tonus even when there be no actual motor adjustment. 
The act of attention is always accompanied by such muscular tension. 
Ability to receive and ability to respond always go together, unless by 
excessive enforced inhibition knowledge getting tends to become mere 
word accumulation. When words, rather than deeds, are made the 
goal of education, the student is in danger of becoming a "learned in- 
competent." 

The optimum amount of inhibition for the adolescent to practice is 
a difficult matter to prescribe, much less to regulate, since civilization 
demands that the individual inhibit many activities which heredity 
transmits and nature seems to warrant. The sex function and many 
social delinquencies are examples of necessary inhibition in which 
strength of normal heredity often increases the task of education. 

Modern psychology sees in muscles organs for expression for all 
efferent processes. . . . Every change of attention and psychic states 
generally plays upon them, unconsciously modifying their tension so that 
they may be called organs of thought and feeling as well as of will. 
. . . Habits even determine the deeper strata of belief, thought is re- 
pressed action, and deeds, not words, are the language of complete men. 
The motor areas are closely related and largely identical with the psychic, 
and muscle culture develops brain centers as nothing else demonstrably 
does. . . . For the young motor education is cardinal, and is now 
coming to due recognition, and for all, education is incomplete without a 
motor side. — Hall: Adolescence, vol. p. 132. 

If there is one form of incompetence more hopeless than all others, it 
is that form which arises from bad schooling. — Davenport: Education 
for Efficiency, p. 46. 

Motor activity does not always manifest itself in the form of move- 
ment. — Judd: Psychology, p. 183. 

No serious thought is possible without some voluntary effort, and no 
emotion ever arises without inducing some form of action. — Judd: Psy- 
chology, p. 66. 

Truly spontaneous attention is conditioned by spontaneous muscle 
tension, which is a function of growth. . . . Muscles are thus organs 
of the mind. — Hall: Adolescence, vol. I., p. 183. 

Considered from the neurological standpoint, inhibition of an action 
is secured mainly by using up in other ways the energy which is needed 
for its suppoi't. — O'Shea: Dynamic Factors in Education, p. 13. 

Civilization and culture tend to modify and refine the expression of 
the motor innervation accompanying thought. — Breese: Inhibition, 



Educational Agriculture. 29 

There is great moral danger on the other side as well. We admit 
the fact in such maxims as "Actions speak louder than words," "Hell is 
paved with good intentions," and latterly in recognizing the virtue of 
one who "keeps still and saws wood." The moral danger which comes 
from usable knowledge drying up for want of expression is increased by 
modern changes and inventions which tend to relieve the individual from 
many essential experiences, whereby children may grow to maturity in 
a protected life. 

With young children, the highest ideals are impossible of apprecia- 
tion. Habits are formed in the preadolescent period before ideals can 
l)ecome effective. Character, on analysis, proves to consist mainly of the 
sum of the individual's methods of reacting to ordinary stimuli, each 
adjustment of which is utilitarian. When ideals become effective, as 
they do in adolescence, they find their power expression through utili- 
tarian channels. Utilitarian education therefore contributes to the 
highest character by inducing useful activities and affording them ex- 
pression. 

The central organs of the nervous system receive stimulations, not 
for the purpose of merely absorbing the energy which these stimulations 
bring to them, but rather for the purpose of transmitting the energy, 
-after redistributing and reorganizing it, to the motor system. — Judd: 
Psychology, p. 134. 

The high standard of moral and intellectual discipline for which our 
schools and universities have been distinguished has not been lowered, 
nor has the pursuit of literary and historical studies been checked by 
the inclusion in the university curriculum of those scientific studies, 
■especially of those branches of applied science for which such ample 
provision has now been made. — Remarks of King Edward VII at the 
University of Leeds, July, 1908. 



Chapter V. 



A PROBLEM IN ADJUSTMENT; POSITION OF THE VARIOUS 

SCIENCES. 

The subjects in the present high-school curriculum most concerned in 
the introduction of agriculture are the sciences, and agriculture will not 
be an integral part of the high-school course until its relation to the 
sciences is satisfactorily adjusted. The science of education, if it have 
any value, should afford some means of solving the problem. 

It is a common mistake to suppose that agricultural materials have 
inherent qualities which determine the appropriate place in the course 
for each fact or principle. Instead, each object concerned has phases 
suited to all grades, while the only difficulties in the study of agriculture 
are scientific difficulties, and as such are best considered in connection 
with the appropriate sciences. 

The proposition is sometimes made to teach agriculture as a second- 
ary subject without any regard to the fundamental sciences. So taught, 
the subject must remain elementary, for its elevation depends upon its 
being made scientific by the utilization of the fundamental sciences. 
There is no permanent good to the reform in leaving all of the difficulties 
out of the study in an attempt to popularize it. Ambitious students pre- 
fer subjects of sufficient dignity to challenge their powers. 

It is sometimes proposed to defer the teaching of agriculture until 
after the sciences are presented. Such postponement would be at the 
risk of starving the vocational interests that are nascent in adolescence 
and which it is the chief purpose of vocational training to cherish at this 
the time most favorable for their nurture. The limited number of high- 
school students who can profit from a course in unapplied, or pure, 
science will not, on the completion of such a course, look with favor upon 
the necessity of abandoning a more perfect organization in order to re- 
organize with the grosser materials which agriculture affords. And the 
severity of the selection has meanwhile eliminated the more practical who 
might have been interested through agriculture. 

There is such a unity and mutual dependence between the subjects of 
agriculture and science in the high school that simultaneous presentation 
is necessary. Agriculture is not supplementary, but complementary, to 

The admixture of technical and academic work will give better results 
than either alone (referring to domestic science). — President Eliot: 
Ed. Review, Feb., 1908, p. 124. 

It is a grave error to set vocational training and liberal training in 
sharp antagonism to each other. The purpose of the former is to pave 
the way to some application of the latter and to provide an economic basis 
for it to rest upon. The equally grave error of the past has been to 
frame a school course on the hypothesis that every pupil was to go for- 
ward in the most deliberate and amplest fashion to the study of the 
products of the intellectual life, regardless of the basis of his own eco- 
nomic support. — Butler: Training for Vocation and for Avocation, Edu- 
cational Review, Dec, 1908, p. 474. 

(30) 



Educational Agriculture. 31 

the science work, and in the course presented on a later page it should 
be understood that the agricultural topics are constantly used in the 
teaching of the correlated sciences, excepting the case of elementary 
chemistry, in which the nature of the subject requires that it be intro- 
duced by means of its own materials rather than the grosser and more 
complex materials of agriculture. 

But there are many phases of agriculture that have no relation to the 
fundamental sciences. They pertain to peculiar skills, practical lore and 
vocational experiences in production. These may be provided for sep- 
arately, either as formal subjects in the program or as extra-program 
or collateral exercises in the home or elsewhere in the locality. This 
divides the subject of high-school agriculture into the three distinct 
phases, namely, formal as correlated with the sciences, formal and uncor- 
related, and extra-program or collateral. 

The only difficulties in the study of agriculture are scientific difficul- 
ties, and it is a reproach upon science-teaching to assume that they may 
be better dealt with apart from the science teaching. The correct se- 
quence of high-school sciences has not been agreed upon and the making 
of the formal agricultural course awaits such agreement. The most 
authoritative statement on this subject thus far is the report of the Com- 
mittee of Ten of the National Education Association, made in 1893, 
though in many respects their recommendation is not adhered to in 
practice. 

The position and sequence of the various sciences have been determined 
heretofore not so much by the needs of the student as by certain external 
circumstances, such as the preparation of the teacher, the cost of equip- 
ment, the requirements of the law in the teaching of hygiene and in the 
certification of teachers, and the relative recency of the different sciences 
to the course — each normally coming in at the upper end of the course 
as passed from the college, and the more recent having not as yet ex- 
hausted their downward tendency. The real test — educational values 
having been determined upon — should probably be partly the diminishing 
necessity during adolescence of the actual motor adjustments in response 
to stimuli whereby is produced the kinaesthetic factor, for the necessary 
strain sensation may come from muscular tonus which involves no motor 
adjustment; and in addition to this is the corresponding change, during 
the high-school period, from coarser to finer muscular adjustments. 
These two tests, rather than any necessary logical sequence, should deter- 
mine the time of presentation; for wherever there is a dependence of one 
science upon another the dependence is mutual, and argues as strongly 
for one order as for the other. Any enlightening principle is best taught 

It is vital, too, that principles be taught with processes and illustrated 
by them.— Butler : Training for Vocation and for Avocation, Educa- 
tional Review, December, 1908, p. 473. 

Subsidiary claims to superiority based on temporary conditions, such 
as the ease with which a subject can be taught, or the superior quality of 
teaching that may at any time be manifest, have no lasting validity, for 
if a subject is hard to teach so as to secure good educational results, all 
we have to do is to learn to teach it properly. — De Garmo: Principles of 
Secondary Education, p. 35. 



32 Western State Normal. 

at the time when the student is made to feel the need of it, and there is 
nothing worth teaching- in any science which may not be taught the 
adolescent by a competent teacher. 

The position of the sciences thus determined, the correlated agricul- 
tural topics may be placed in the course. In this correlation the sciences 
represent more of the sensory-intellectual end, and the agriculture rep- 
resents, in a measure, the intellectual-motor end, of the process. Agri- 
culture may be so utilized in the teaching of the sciences to students 
whose interest is mainly in the sciences. Until the time of election of 
vocation, which may be late in the course, the work of the science student 
and that of the agricultural student need differ but little. 

With the election of agriculture in the latter part of the course, the 
phases of the subject, treated disconnectedly as portions of the funda- 
mental sciences, are gathered and related to the subject as a whole, and 
this synthesis should include much other matter that cannot be treated 
in connection with the sciences. The unification of this matter on its own 
economic foundation constitutes the science of agriculture. This affords 
a chance to idealize the vocation, as every subject should be idealized to 
be worthy of a place in the high-school curriculum. 

Elsewhere the writer has treated the matter of the course at consid- 
erable length and somewhat definitely formulated that portion which per- 

Vocational training is to be postponed as long as possible. It is to rest 
upon the most extended general schooling which the individual can get. — 
E. E. Brown : The Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 459. 

With children, the temptation is to have too much rather than too little 
continuity. . . . The higher the grade the more the topics may be 
correlated and coordinated. — Bailey: The Nature-study Idea, p. 132. 

In every case correlation has been successful, when the instructor was 
sufficiently versed in his own subject and the kindred subjects to know 
them and how to bring the two together to the best advantage. — Abbey: 
Normal School Instruction in Agriculture, p. 29. 

The past is fairly united, as is the present, in the proposition that 
secondary education should be more general than special, that it should 
serve as the prolegomena for future study, laying a sure foundation of 
knowledge and skill for subsequent specialization. — De Garmo: Principles 
of Secondary Education, p. 29. 

The human plant circummutates in a wider and wider circle, and the 
endeavor should be to prevent it from prematurely finding a support, to 
prolong the period of variation to which this stage of life is sacred, and to 
prevent natural selection from confirming too soon the slight advantage 
which any quality may temporarily have in this struggle for existence 
among many faculties and tendencies within us. The educational ideal 
is now to develop capacities in as many directions as possible, to indulge 
caprice and velleity a little, to delay consistency for a time, and let the 
diverse pi-epotencies struggle with each other. — Hall: Adolescence, vol. 
II, pp. 88, 89. 

Agi'icultui-e as a science is dependent upon many more fundamental 
sciences, such as chemistry, physics and botany; it could not develop or 
reach a scientific basis until the latter were also placed upon a firm 
foundation. — Carlton : Education and Industrial Evolution, p. 206. 



Educational Agriculture. 



33 



tains to class instruction. The plan of the course there set forth is briefly 
indicated by the following synopsis: 

Chart II. 
The High-School Course in Science and Agriculture. 



IX. 


X. 


XI. 


XII. 


The fundamental sciences taught with an economic 
application and by means of agricultural materials. 
Analytic and unorganized with regard to agriculture. 
Organized from the aspect of the fundamental sciences. 
Agricultural and science students in the same science 
classes. 


The subject of agriculture 
organized as a science, includ- 
ing materials treated analyti- 
cally the previous threeyears. 
Vocational ideals inculcated. 
Science work continued inde- 
pendently. 


Applied science. 


General Agriculture. 


Elem. physics. 
Geography. 


Botany. 


Biology. 
Chemistry. 


Zootechny. 

Specialization, diversification, 

rotation. 
Farm equipment. 
Comparative agriculture. 
Improvement by selection. 
Rural economics. 


Soils. 

Mechanics. 
Tillage. 
Weather. 


Economic plants. 
Field crops. 
Horticulture. 


Economic insects. 
Diseases. 
Fertility. 
Foods and 
rations. 


Formal and extra-program agriculture ( vocational electives.) 
Farm animals, manual and technical arts, assumed services, home projects. 



Only the course as planned for the agricultural student is shown here, though much of it is 
in common with the regular science course. Those schools which, for lack of funds, time or 
faculty, are compelled to give a briefer course, will ordinarily find it more convenient to alter 
the work of the third year as here given and cover the work of that and the last year in one year, 
thus leaving the first two years intact. Further, the economy of time may be accomplished in 
the smaller high school by the alternation of the first two years of the course. 



3— ED. AGR. 



Chapter VI. 

FORMAL DISCIPLINE AND ITS TRANSFER. 

In the making of this course the validity of the recent teaching that 
formal discipline is of less general application in education than has 
often heretofore been recognized in practice, and that such transfer of 
training as may be made from one field of work to another is due to an 
identity of elements or an idealization of the abstract virtue or faculty 
common to both, is admitted. 

The course aims to satisfy at once the needs of both the agricultural 
student and the general science student, whose aims may be very different. 
This economy is justified by such experiments as have been made in the 
teaching of science for its own sake through an economic appeal, incom- 
plete and meager though those experiments have been. The union of both 
classes of students in the same group for instruction is a great adminis- 
trative economy, and it is believed to have the virtue of properly bal- 
ancing the work so as to make it more valuable for either class than if 
the classes were segregated, as it insures a x-eal economic "struggle-for- 
existence" motive for the science student such as his aim does not fur- 
nish, while to the agricultural student it insures a "scientific" science 
rather than what might otherwise be a makeshift. 

The "identity of procedure" is thus relied upon to make possible the 
transfer from one purpose to the other. The union of classes is further 
justified by the selection of material for this common study, as far as 
may be, from such as has a value to either if taught separately. This 
may be readily done in biology without destroying its unity, while in 
physics, selection is made of necessary principles, leaving the greater 
portion of that subject to be treated independent of the agricultural 
needs. Geography is regarded as not being properly susceptible of dif- 
ferent treatment for the different aims, if it be made "humanistic," as it 
and all other high-school sciences should be, while elementary chemistry, 

But what is more serious is the generally recognized fact that pupils 
who excel in school are often beaten in professional or business life by 
fellow-pupils who ranked below them in class standing. The school 
abilities acquired through school activities are not in these cases carried 
over into the envii'onmental activities outside the school. This is due to 
the difference between the matter and the method of the two activities 
and to the conseqvient inability of the pupils to make success in the one 
issue into success in the other. If there were such a transfer of acquired 
ability as the doctrine of formal discipline implies, there would not be 
such a difference in the ranking of individuals in the two activities. — ■ 
Heck: Mental Discipline and Educational Values, p. 44. 

The doctrine of formal discipline assumed that the mastery of a cer- 
tain subject gave one an increased power to master other subjects. It is 
clear that there is a certain amount of truth in this statement, provided 
that we understand very clearly that this increased power must always 
take the form of an ideal that will function as judgment and not of an 
unconscious predisposition that will function as habit. In other words, 
unless the ideal has been developed consciously, there can be no cer- 

(34) 



Educational Agriculture. 35 

from its nature, is a science that cannot be compromised to suit special 
needs, however much its teaching might be improved. 

There is thus achieved an "identity of substance," an "identity of pro- 
cedure," but no "identity of aim" — the difference of aims being provided 
for by the vocational and other electives. 

tainty that the power will be increased, no matter how intrinsically well 
the subject may have been mastered. — Bagley: The Educative Process, 
p. 216. 

It is not denied that elements and relations not directly useful in them- 
selves must be included as a preparation for elements directly useful. — 
Heck: Mental Discipline and Educational Values, p. 118. 



Chapter VII. 

HUMANISTIC SCIENCE, APPLIED SCIENCE, AND 
AGRICULTURE. 

The exact scope of each of these three phases of the combined science- 
agriculture group is not well defined. All science should be taught with 
a humanistic motive; though with the adolescent the stricter economic 
appeal, since it makes his attitude that of an active controlling agent 
rather than a mere passive observer, is often the stronger, while agri- 
culture furnishes the readiest materials for the teaching of applied sci- 
ence. Considered in the order indicated and as hereafter developed, 
there is a gradual transition in the formulation of the subject from 
psychological to sociological demands which should establish an intimate 
dependence between "the school and society." 

Lying on the more formal or psychological side, high-school sciences 
have not succeeded as educational subjects to the extent that their early 
advocates hoped and expected. Among various reasons assigned for this, 
it is generally conceded that they have been presented too much as pure 
science, and the proposed remedy is to make them "humanistic" by relat- 
ing them more to man's life and needs, spiritual as well as physical. The 
humanistic motive should be strong in the teacher's mind. 

Only by taking a hand in the making of knowledge, by transferring 
guess and opinion into belief authorized by inquiry, does one ever get a 
knowledge of the method of knowing. Because participation in the 
making of knowledge has been scant, because reliance on the efficacy of 
acquaintance with certain kinds of facts has been current, science has 
not accomplished in education what was predicted for it. — Dewey: 
Science as Subject-matter and as Method. 

It seems to be a fact that the sciences, although dealing in knowledge 
of matters of the greatest immediate interest, and although concerned 
with the most elemental of all trainings . . . are still of mediocre 
efficiency as factors in general education. — W. F. Ganong, Presidential 
Address, Botanical Society of America, Boston, December, 1909. 

An interpenetration of humanism with science, and of science with 
humanism, is the condition of the highest culture. — John Addington 
Symonds: Culture. 

I cannot help feeling . . . that we have not yet succeeded in so 
organizing the sciences as instruments of general education as to fulfill 
the high expectations which some of us formed for them nearly a quai'ter 
of a century ago. There can be little doubt that the sciences of nature 
and of man, properly organized and presented as educational instru- 
ments, are destined to be classified as true humanities. — President 
Butler's address of welcome to the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science, 1906. (Quoted in A^ Y. Independent, July 8, 1909, 
p. 85.) 

Our science teaching would be better if our teachers trusted less in 
the abounding merits of their subjects and more to the qualities which 
personally influence young people. . . . There is no consistency be- 
tween these things and the preservation of the scientific quality of the 

(36) 



Educational Agriculture. 37 

The difference in pedago^cal method between pure and applied science 
is due to a difference in the teacher's apparent motive rather than his 
real ultimate motive, in which they are educationally identical. Ap- 
plied science is more readily appreciated by the adolescent and arrives 
at the same goal by a way that may carry more students with it. The 
application of science to something utilitarian necessarily involves the 
arts, notably agriculture, which includes the rudiments of many arts and 
sciences. Hence this subject becomes most valuable for the teaching of 
the sciences. 

The subject agriculture proper is divisible into a number of distinct 
fields. As shown in the course of study, the subject of "general agri- 
culture," a vocational elective which is intended as a synthesis of all 
previous agricultural lore, hitherto given in fragments and now organ- 
ized into the "science of agriculture," is assigned to the last year. In the 
utilization of knowledge in this science of agriculture there is danger of 
neglecting quality for quantity. The amount of useful knowledge which 
will have accumulated incidentally in connection not only with the ap- 
plied science but with such vocational electives as agricultural arts, 
stock judging, assumed services and home projects, all of which are con- 
tinuous throughout the course, is so great as to easily obscure the more 
important purposes of broadening and liberalizing the subject and of in- 
culcating vocational ideals. 

teaching. It is simply a question of the presentation of science in a 
manner which is humanistic. — W. F. Ganong, Presidential Address, 
Botanical Society of America, Boston, December, 1909. 

As our schools grow more national they should also grow more human- 
istic. The older humanism was devotion to ... an abstract ideal. 
The newer humanism of the schools cannot well dispense with the best 
that the older humanism had to offer. But it will cease to be abstract. 
. . . The best that the school can do to guard them (youth) against 
self-centered commercialism is to awaken their enthusiasm for some 
ideal good which has power of appeal to the imagination. . . . We 
may look to see ... a new humanism, leaning more and more on 
science, mindful of the past, patriotic in the present, and looking hope- 
fully forward to the larger human interests. — E. E. Brown: The 
Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 463. 

It is generally agreed . . . that the initial study of a science should 
be from its economic, or human, side. The child should be introduced 
to facts and principles in their relation to his life, to his needs. — Bagley: 
The Educative Process, p. 232. 

Agriculture is evidently to be a pioneer in this business of the adapta- 
tion of science to the common affairs of life in the schools that are at- 
tended by the masses, and if this be true, its incidental service may be 
even larger than its direct. — Davenport: Education for Efficiency, 
p. 146. 

That there should one man die ignorant who had capacity for knowl- 
edge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in 
the minute, as by some computations it does. The miserable fraction of 
science which our united mankind, in a wide universe of nescience, has 
acquired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted to all? — Car- 
LYLE : Sartor Resartus. 

Learning a business really implies learning the science involved in it. 
. . . A grounding in science is of great importance, both because it 



38 Western State Normal. 

The vocational electives represented as running throughout the agri- 
cultural course will include the subjects of agricultural arts, in which 
training may be given formally in the school or by excursions, and the 
extra-program subjects of animal husbandry, assumed services and home 
projects, all of which will be considered in that order in the succeeding 
pages. 

prepares for this and because rational knowledge has an immense supe- 
riority over empirical knowledge. — Spencer: Education, chap. I, 
"What Knowledge is Most Worth?" 

Education for efficiency must not be materialistic, prosaic or utili- 
tarian; it must be idealistic, humane and passionate, or it will not win 
its goal. — Eliot: Education for Efficiency, p. 29. 

In the order both of time and of importance, science as method pre- 
cedes science as subject-matter. — Dewey: Science as Subject-matter and 
as Method. 

Only the gradual replacing of a literary by a scientific education can 
assure to man the progressive amelioration of his lot. — Dewey: Science 
as Subject-matter and as Method. 

Science is the most precious achievement of the race thus far. It has 
made Nature speak to man with the voice of God, has given man previ- 
sion so that he knows what to expect in the world, has eliminated shock, 
and, above all, has made the world a universe coherent and consistent 
throughout.— Hall: Adolescence, vol. II, p. 544. 

The future of our civilization depends upon the widening spread and 
deepening hold of the scientific habit of mind; and the problem of prob- 
lems in our education is therefore to discover how to mature and make 
effective this scientific habit. — Dewey: Science as Subject-matter and 
as Method. 

This recognition of science as pure knowledge, and of the scientific 
method as the universal method of inquiry, is the great addition made 
by the nineteenth century to the idea of culture. I need not say that 
v/ithin that century what we call science, pure and applied, has trans- 
formed the world as the scene of the human drama, and that it is this 
transformation which has compelled the recognition of natural science 
as a fundamental necessity in liberal education. — Eliot: Education for 
Efficiency, p. 37. 

Agriculture should be introduced into the high school for its educa- 
tional value. It will then constitute a good groundwork for later 
training in education in a training class or elsewhere. — Bailey: Train- 
ing for Teachers of Agriculture, p. 33. 

I often wish that the phrase "applied science" had never been in- 
vented. For it suggests that there is a sort of scientific knowledge of 
direct practical use which can be studied apart from another sort of 
scientific knowledge which is of no practical utility and which is termed 
"pure science." But there is no more complete fallacy than this. What 
people call applied science is nothing but the application of pure science 
to particular classes of problems. It consists of deductions from those 
general principles, established by reason and observation, which con- 
stitute pui'e science No man can safely make these deductions until 
he has a firm grasp of the principles, and he can obtain that grasp only 
by personal experience of the operations of observations and of reasoning 
on which they are founded. — Huxley: Science and Culture. 

Items of knowledge that have little or no significance in the practical 
affairs of life . . . may nevertheless be necessary to a system of 
knowledge. — Bagley: The Educative Process, p. 233. 



Chapter VIII. 

AGRICULTURAL ARTS; HABIT VS. JUDGMENT. 

American education has been very deficient in the character of train- 
ing intended to establish correct habits in pupils. From the extreme posi- 
tion of regarding the aim of education as merely a matter of information 
and understanding, progress is being made toward the inclusion of drills, 
whereby useful manual and mental operations are reduced to the plane 
of automatisms. The recognition of the value of the formation of correct 
habits in all kinds of work is a great step in advance. Character itself has 
been defined as the sum of all the habitual responses of an individual to 
ordinary stimuli. That the repetition of a process may have further value 
after it has become fixed in habit is now being claimed with some show 
of truth. Certainly the new education will recognize the educative neces- 
sity of habit formation more than did the old. 

Manual skills tend to differentiate workers from the great unskilled 
class and to make specialists of them. When any operation becomes 
important enough through frequency that it is profitable for the operative 
to perfect his skill in it we have a new trade or profession and he passes 
from the ranks of the unskilled class. Where this law is free to operate, 
as in industrial centers, it tends to result in an intellectual and social 
stratification, leaving the less gifted in a permanent unskilled class com- 
posed of transient individuals from which a democracy should provide 
each generation an opportunity to pass. And the opportunities will be 
as many as the education of each generation provides, since mere human 
strength may always be supplanted by natural forces if there be some 
skilled worker to direct them. These facts condition the character of 
industrial education for urban populations. 

But the case of agricultural education in America is very different, 
since the number of manual operations peculiar to general agriculture 
worthy of being drilled into the stage of automatism is relatively small 
compared with the number of cases where judgment rather than habit 
finds application. It is true that skill in the performance of an opera- 
tion is as valuable in agricultural as in other industries, but the great 
variety of necessary agricultural operations, the infrequency of occa- 
sions for their exercise during the year, and the relatively small number 
of them that will ever be susceptible to conventional treatment in the 
school, are factors which determine a very different treatment for this 
from other vocational education — a feature in which American agricul- 
ture differs quite markedly from that of those European states whose 
agricultural schools some of our educational reformers, whose vision 
rarely goes farther countryward than the suburbs, would have us adopt 
as a solution of the problem of agricultural education in America, and 
implying a danger which the success of the other form of industrial 
education but increases. 

The success of industrial education should be judged by its product. 
Outside of certain special suburban forms of agriculture, this must em- 

(39) 



40 Western State Normal. 

phasize citizenship as well as material goods. Hence the Old World 
agricultural education, which is better suited to our suburban than to our 
rural population, and is much like industrial education for the manufac- 
turing population, cannot be adopted for the agricultural masses with the 
same prospect of success that we may copy their technical schools for 
other industries. 

The ideal agriculture emphasizes diversification rather than speciali- 
zation, both for economic and sociological reasons. As a natural corol- 
lary the ideal rural society does not recognize a distinct social stratifica- 
tion. These facts go to the root of the question of the proper education 
for a democratic rural citizenship such as the Old World does not know, 
and involve too much discussion to be further pursued at this place. 
Considered from the purely economic point of view, the proper training 
for diversified agriculture aims at managerial skill in which judgment in- 
volves dollars where habit involves dimes. The most important form of 
manual training for the future agriculturist will not differ very mate- 
rially from that provided by the wood and metal work of the best manual- 
training courses of the strictly urban schools. Of the strictly agricul- 
tural skills worthy of being taught in a formal agricultural course most 
belong below the high-school age, whjen habits are acquired with greater 
facility and permanency. 

These facts do not negative the importance of a proper amount of in- 
struction in correct methods of all kinds of manual operations in connec- 
tion with the assumed services and home projects, under the best psycho- 
logical conditions for their teaching — the immediate need of instruction. 
These are considered in the next chapter. 



Chapter IX. 

COLLATERAL OR EXTRA-PROGRAM AGRICULTURE. 

The formal side of agricultural education is a matter easily appre- 
ciated by the schoolman trained on the usual academic lines, as it con- 
cerns matters readily formulated into courses and programs. But this 
formal portion involves mainly the sensory-intellectual side of the learn- 
ing process, which should be supplemented by the intellectual-motor 
ingredient. And in the grammar grade and high-school period, coinci- 
dent with adolescence, there is born the vocational interest, which should 
be fostered lest it starve to death during this nascent period. These 
needs are supplied by extra-program activities of an informal character. 
The vitality of the high-school agricultural course will be drawn from 
its extra-program phases which distribute themselves throughout the 
course, constituting the source and end of its interests. Its variety and 
informal character preclude definite formulation, but it is covered by 
the three fields of animal husbandry, assumed services, and home projects. 

The work of animal husbandry is supplemented by the zootechny of 
the fourth year of the formal course. It aims at perfecting skill in 
stock judging, but in addition gives especial attention to the care of 

Beauty must come back to the useful arts, and the distinction between 
the fine and the useful arts be forgotten. — Emerson : Art. 

All our industries would cease were it not for that information which 
men begin to acquire as best they may after their education is said to be 
finished. — Spencer: Education, chap. I, "What Knowledge is Most 
Worth?" 

From the standpoint of the child, the great waste in the school comes 
from his inability to utilize the experiences he gets outside the school in 
any complete and free way within the school itself; while, on the other 
hand, he is unable to apply in daily life what he is learning at school. 
That is the isolation of the school — its isolation from life. When the 
child gets into the schoolroom he has to put out of his mind a large part 
of the ideas, interests and activities that predominate in his home and 
neighborhood. — Dewey: The School and Society, p. 89. 

The strictly vocational courses succeed nowhere else so well as where 
intimately associated with the nonvocational. This association is good for 
all parties. It not only adds culture and refinement to the vocational, but 
it adds directness and initiative to the cultural, thus turning back to the 
community a product whose individuals are highly schooled in specialized 
activities and therefore likely to succeed, yet by association have learned 
to be broadly sympathetic with all activities and with all classes of 
eff'ective people. — Davenport: Education for Efficiency, p. 48. 

While vocation should neither be the end nor the means of the educa- 
tional process, yet it should be its inseparable concomitant. — Davenport: 
Education for Efficiency, p. 28. 

The application in some form should always follow the generalization. 
The pupil should learn from the start that knowledge as it exists in the 
form of laws, principles, rules, or definitions is utterly valueless, unless, 
directly or indirectly, it can be carried over into the field of practice. — 
Bagley: The Educative Process, p. 303. 

(41) 



42 Western State Normal. 

animals, a matter which the formal work cannot successfully do. The 
work is by excursions, with group instruction and without regard to 
the pupil's grade or rank, thus affording a chance for the stock genius, 
who may be compelled to accept a very humble place in the usual 
academic discussions, to come into his own. 

The school must depend upon the locality for its materials for this 
work and the availability of stock is such as to prevent this becoming 
a formal subject. Reviews before and after the excursion are the best 
means of counteracting the great depreciation in value to which work 
of this character is liable. 

Assumed services have the peculiar merit of developing social useful- 
ness, in addition to their value as a means of instruction. Such services 
should establish the most helpful relationship between the school and 
the community. They may be regular and definite, such as the testing 
of all articles bought, sold or px'oduced in the community, or emergency 
services of all degrees of irregularity. The school so imbued will make 
this the field for much real missionary work. 

The peculiar merit of the home project is the occasion it affords 
throughout the course for real vocational experience, instead of deferring 
the application of class instruction until its close, as is usually done in 
school work. The project should be appropriate to the home farm, since 
it is only there that the essential factors of ownership and responsibility 
may be given exercise. The school instruction should aim to enlighten 
the tasks which the student is compelled to perform in a proper domestic 
distribution of work, and so enlightened such task may become a project. 

Once selected, a project should be continued to its logical close, which 
is normally with the production of something of market value. It thus 
becomes the student's thesis and capable of development, by the training 
in the scientific method it gives, into a thing of great value to the student 
and the school, and possibly as a contribution to the stock of knowledge 
which alleviates the world's hardships. The project gives the student 
his best opportunity for applying the principles taught in the formal 

This is why many teachers do not know the subject-matter or method 
they teach; in knowing the elements apart from the environment which 
gives them value they really do not know what their value is. This is 
probably the weakest point in our teaching forcp — the ignorance of 
teachers regarding the environmental relations and values of school 
studies. Their training should be more in practical sociology and less 
in hypothetical pedagogy. — Heck: Mental Discipline and Educational 
Values, p. 117. 

The instincts of property which, as early as four or five, found a 
primitive expression in aimless and trivial collections now takes a rational 
and human form (in adolescence). — Bagley: The Educative Process, 
p. 198. 

The worst gift, perhaps, that an evil genius has made to our age is 
knowledge without training in efficiency. — Pestalozzi. 

The outside environment must be made into the meaningful school 
environment of the pupil, and there is no need why, in this process, the 
elements of the outside environment should be misrelated or misvalued. 
On the other hand, it is only in so far as these two environments are 
similar that the child lives in school a life that has functional value 
outside. — Heck: Mental Discipline and Educational Values, p. 120. 



Educational Agriculture. 43 

side of his work, makes him a sponsor for the school, and disseminates 
science to the community. It can never be developed by a school that 
keeps its students away from their homes. It is incapable of measuring 
by "credits" as to its informational, much less its vocational, value, but 
its preparatory value is unquestionably very great. Until some system 
for the recognition of such work is devised it may automatically receive 
partial recognition as affecting the quality of the student's knowledge. 
To education generally, its value is as a corrective of the natural tendency 
of academic knowledge to grow obsolete. 

We really retain only the knowledge we apply. — Hall: Adolescence, 
vol. I, p. 173. 

Actively to participate in the making of knowledge is the highest pre- 
rogative of man and the only warrant of his freedom.— Dewey : Science 
as Subject-matter and as Method. 

Properly thou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast got by 
working; the rest is all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to be argued 
in schools, a thing floating in the clouds, in endless logic vortices, till we 
try and fix it. — Carlyle : Essay on Labor, p. 185. 

One has, however, only to glance at the history of any specific educa- 
tional system to recognize that in its inception each system was intended 
to fit the pupil for some special form of life, and in this vocation the 
studies offered really had a place. . . . Fortunate the child who is 
brought up in a system which affords him ideas fitted to his own day and 
generation instead of those appropriate to the times and conditions of his 
great-grandparents. — Angell: Psychology, p. 220. 

There is an American notion of long standing . . . that special 
training for any particular service is a reflection on the brightness of the 
person trained. . . . This crude conceit is now passing away. . . . 
Teaching still lags in this respect but is trying to catch up. — E. E. 
Brown : The Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 459. 

In order to insure well-rounded development, mental and manual work 
should fall to the lot of every man and woman, irrespective of all arti- 
ficial class distinctions. . . . 

The monastic ideal of education is now obsolete; education should be an 
integral part of life. In order to better prepare for future usefulness of 
the students, school work and practical work should be drawn closer to- 
gether. Coordination of theory and practice, both as to time and place, 
is desirable. The customary wide separation of the two is the cause of 
serious waste of human energy. . . . 

The world needs the doer and the thinker united in one individual. — 
Carlton: Education and Industrial Evolution, pp. 91, 92. 

Emerson . . . taught that the acquisition of some form of manual 
skill and the practice of some form of manual labor were essential ele- 
ments of culture. This idea has more and more become accepted in the 
systematic education of youth. — Eliot: Education for Efficiency, p. 37. 

The vital knowledge, that by which we have grown as a nation to what 
we are, and which underlies our whole existence, is a knowledge that has 
got itself taught in nooks and corners; while the ordained agencies for 
teaching have been mumbling little else but dead formulas. — Spencer: 
Education, chap. I, "What Knowledge is Most Worth?" 



Chapter X. 

THE SEASONAL ORDER OF PRESENTATION. 

The motive of agriculture as a high-school subject is often assumed 
to be merely economic. Previous discussion herein has been intended 
to show a much wider value in its racial and national motives as well as 
its educational function in the teaching of the sciences and its sociological 
significance to the school and society. 

But while agricultural science covers a much wider field than that of 
economic production, it by no means covers all that is necessary for 
success in that field. The ability to "hustle," more than the knowledge 
of science, will contribute to economic success; and to insure practice for 
this necessary element to success, the school should observe the order 
of the seasons in the presentation of agricultural instruction, anticipating 
coming farm activities and making them subjects for school consideration 
when they are at the high tide of interest in the students' homes. Each 
agricultural topic will have its best time for presentation within the 
school term, and this agricultural calendar should be worked out by each 
state or distinct physiographic region. 

What the pupil is unable to use at any time cannot be taught him 
most economically and efficiently at that time. — O'Shea: Dynamic Fac- 
tors in Education, p. 41. 



Chart III. Agricultural calendar for a high school 



September. 



October. 



Effects of field mulches. 



November. 



December. 



Soil work in laboratory. 



Erosion and drainage, field observations. 



Identification of common-plant 
families. 



Seed srathering. 
Legrumes. 



January. 



Weather. 

Role of 



Wheat, oats and corn; quality and variety. 

I Corn kernel: structure and 

composition. 



Pot culture of wheat and legumes 
plant foods. 



Fruits and fruiting habits. 



Insects; systematic and economic. 



Destiny of crops. 
Food princi- 
ples; rations. 



Judging fat stock. 

Horse; external points and defects. 
Dairy cow compared with beef. 



Breeds and care of stock. 



Meat and milk. 



(44) 



Educational Agriculture. 



45 



Courses of study in agriculture for secondary schools betray a marked 
neglect of this vital factor, placement often being contrary to the dictates 
of the season. This distribution throughout the year does not affect the 
gradation of the subject by years, and the fact that the correct time 
and sequence for agricultural topics is identical with that which is best 
for the correlated sciences further demonstrates the unity of the combined 
subject. One unfamiliar with the agricultural materials and principles 
is not competent to make the appropriate calendar for his school. 

Observing the seasonal order keeps the science work in something of 
a flux, which the devotees of formal education regard undesirable. But 
with the high school it is really a great merit, as it perfects the best 
relation between the school and the locality. The schools need more of 
applied sociology, and in being compelled to go to the local agriculture 
for a cue for the formal instruction, the school becomes indentified with 
the interests of its patrons and those who pay its bills. Therefore it is 
of prime importance that the class catch the step, even though it may at 
first be able to do little more than mark time in the march of the 
seasons. 

No attempt has been made to show in the course of study on a previous 
page the seasonal distribution of the agricultural work. A complete 
course for a "corn belt" high school would show a distribution of subtopics 
agreeable to the course as given and the accompanying agricultural 
calendar: 



(forty degrees north latitude), covering several years' work. 



February. 



Soils of the 
state, 
humus. 

Leaching. 
Cover crops. 



with soluble 



Corn belt; pop- 
ulation and 
industries. 
Bulletin 
assignments. 
Yearbook 
statistics. 



State experi- 
ment station 
work. 



Poultry. 



March. 



April. 



May. 



Effects of slope, color, drainage and texture on 
temperature. 



Erosion and drainage. 



Implements of cultivation; mulches. 

Legumes, manures and fertilizers. 



Vacation. 



Precipitation 
record. 



Seed purity and viability. 



Pruning, grafting, spraying. 
Farm records. 



Corn-breeding plots. 



School garden and demonstra- 
tion plots. 



Contour, soil, equipment, crops and rotations of 
local farms. 



Chapter XI. 

OTHER CORRELATED SUBJECTS. 

The psychological moment for presenting a subject for study is when 
the student realizes the need of it. Much of the elementary work is 
done with other incentives. The subject in which the agricultural student 
will be found most deficient in preparation is arithmetic, and though it 
is not regarded as a high-school subject its general importance and the 
lack of ability of the average high-school student to use it should be 
sufficient to warrant some attention to it, whether agreeable to the 
pedagogical fashion of the day or not. 

Although arithmetic does not appear by name anywhere on this course 
of study, no course devoid of agriculture could, by giving arithmetic 
a distinct place, provide more valuable practice in all applications of 
that subject than may one of this kind. Moisture determinations, seed 
testing, milk testing, soil analysis, and the physical laws pertaining to 
liquids, gases and machines involve all of the applications of percentage, 
proportion and analysis; agricultural statistics form a distinct and here- 
tofore neglected phase of arithmetic, including the making and reading 
of curves and diagrams; while fertilizers and rations of the third year 
and problems in farm equipment of the last year involve every chapter 
of arithmetic, from the simplest mensuration to the long forgotten sub- 
ject of alligation. 

Arithmetic presented in this way is vital, and contributes to the 
agricultural work in such a way as to pay for the time and space it 
takes by requiring a precise knowledge of the agricultural or scientific 
principle involved. Ability to understand and solve the problem is the 
only guarantee that the principle is understood. The lack of correlation 
between such concrete needs and the mathematical processes in which 
they are involved constitutes one of the greatest defects in the teaching 
of both mathematics and exact science. And what has been said about 
the application of mathematics to this subject is equally true regarding 
insti'uction in drawing, a regularly graded course in which may be 
made in connection with the science and agricultural work. 

(46) 



Chapter XII. 

RETARDATION; ADMISSION, GRADUATION, AND ACCREDIT- 
ING OF STUDENTS. 

Studies in retardation of pupils in the elementary schools indicate 
that when a pupil is once retarded it is usually very difficult to regain 
the lost grade or, frequently, to continue without further retardation 
unless the degraded pupil be removed from the class of younger pupils 
into which his deficiency casts him. The most successful treatment of 
such cases has been to place the retarded pupil in class with children 
whose physical stage of development is similar to his own, which is, 
normally, not affected by the cause of the scholastic retardation. Such 
studies also show that better intellectual progress is made where the 
studies in which the deficiencies exist can be presented along with some 
form of industrial training. 

In admitting students to high-school work such as is indicated by 
the foregoing course of study, in the light of our present knowledge, the 
physical stage of development should enter more largely into consider- 
ation and the scholastic requirements be less rigid than is usual with 
high schools. The high school is not founded on the elementary grades 
but should stand on its own foundation, else it will not only continue 
its present tendency to grow aloof from the community which pays its 
bills but will violate this truest standard of admission of students. 
While there must, of course, be some test other than the physical, adoles- 
cence, being a rebirth, should provide the student of good parts and 
intentions and suitable age, but who has been unfortunate in previous 
school work, another chance to get what the school may offer toward 
making him a more efficient citizen, by admitting him to what he feels 
to be the appropriate companionship of his equals. To make such a 
plan practicable, some preparatory work in English and mathematics 
may be found necessary to repair such lack in the rudiments as would 
impair good high-school work. The teacher may sometimes be surprised 
to discover how little difference there is between students with good 
elementary records and those having none, when it comes to utilizing 
their supposed acquirements. Similarly, the student's ability to "do 
good work," rather than his success in getting "good grades" merely, 
should determine his satisfactory completion of this subject, considering 
that his nonagricultural branches afford appropriate opportunities for 
checking up his scholastic attainments. 

Graduation is usually determined largely by the acquisition of a re- 
quired number of "credits," each representing a somewhat definite 
amount of work as determined by authoritative educational committees. 
Secondary agriculture, never having been either standardized within the 
school nor made uniform throughout any system of schools, suffers some- 
what as a preparatory subject. The various distinct phases of the sub- 
ject differ so widely in character as to make it necessary, in a just 
estimation, to deal separately with each division. 

The formal side of the agricultural work offers few difficulties in the 

(47) 



48 Western State Normal. 

way of estimation according to the rules observed for other subjects. 
The poi-tion correlated with the sciences and designated together as 
"applied science" should readily pass as an essential part of the cor- 
related sciences. The portion designated "general agriculture," and re- 
ferred to as the "science of agriculture," while readily measured in time 
units for the purposes of the school, wants an authoritative recognition 
and definition before it will get its deserts as a preparatory subject, 
though some state colleges and universities are compelled by their own 
preaching to recognize the practical loi^e included therein in admission 
to agricultural courses. The real essence of the subject, which best 
appears in the operative side, as represented by the extra-program 
group, rather than the speculative side, defies estimation by the present 
methods, and its unquestioned value as a complement to the preparatory 
work in the sciences calls for such a sympathy between the secondary 
school and the higher institution as will insure the respect of the latter 
for this work when pi"operly done, and fairness in the former in evalu- 
ating and vouching for students' work. It is not the agricultural. work as 
such that constitutes the best preparation for college, not even the agri- 
cultural college, but the right kind of science work which only the cor- 
related agriculture insures, that has prepai'atory value. 

The question of college entrance requirements is a question of rela- 
tionship between institutions, each having its separate responsibility to 
the public. The college should set the secondary school the example of 
considering both terms of this relationship with perfect fairness. — E. E. 
Brown: The Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 443. 

It is time the high school served the interests of the community first 
of all; and if they will do that thoroughly, the colleges will manage to 
connect with them on some terms mutually satisfactory. If that is im- 
possible, then let the high school faithfully discharge its natural functions 
to the community that gives it life and support, and leave adjustments 
to the universities. — Davenport: Education for Efficiency, p. 26. 

It is a bad state of things when the question whether students pre- 
paring for college should take one study or another in the secondary 
school, could be decided by a compromise between rival college depart- 
ments, represented in a faculty meeting, without a moment's consideration 
of what might be intrinsically best for the students themselves at this 
stage of their schooling. — E. E. Brown: The Making of Our Middle 
Schools, p. 442. 

The purpose of a well-considered accrediting system is ... to en- 
courage and build up real educational institutions of secondary grade. 
. . . It has given communities the means ... of discovering the 
deficiencies and likewise the excellencies of their schools, . . . has 
quickened the intellectual life of schools and of whole communities, by the 
immediate touch of university ideals.— E. E. Brown : The Making of Our 
Middle Schools, p. 376. 



Educational Agriculture. 



49 



Chart IV. 

A High-school Course in Agriculture and Related Sciences, 
Showing the place of industrial and vocational electives. 
'The nemesis of all reformers is finality."— Huxley, Science and Education, chap. VI. 



I. Elementary Physics and Geography. 



Mechanics of liquids (ocean). 
Matter, force, cavity. 

Mechanics of gases (atmosphere); barome- 
ter. Heat, thermometer. 
Meteorology. 

Earth structure ; minerals ( land forms) . 
Weathering ; erosion. 
Principles of machines. 



Moisture control in the field. 

Soils ; laboratory and local. 

Daily weather map. 

Soils of state and physiographic regions of 

U.S; climate and agricultural products. 
Soil temperature and texture ; methods of 

control. 



3 II. Botany. 

Structure and function of flower ; science 
of sex. 

Recognition of chief economic families. 

Fruit and fruiting habits. 

Cross and minute structure and function 
of root, stem, and leaf. 

Plant physiology. 

Seed structure, composition, and germina- 
tion (economic). 



II. Industrial. 

Ag. horticulture and field crops. 

Dom. sci. 

Manual training. 



Illa. Chemistry (first half year) . 

General chemistry ; text, theory, and laboratory." 

Industrial ( second half) . 

Ag. feeds and fertilizers. 

Dom. Sci. — : 

Manual training and technical. — 



7 III6. Biology (first half year) . 

Insects ; ecology, life history, injury, structure, repression, collection, classification. 
Fungi, bacteria, and protozoa ; germ diseases of plants and animals, repression. Use- 
ful forms ; inoculation. 

8 Invertebrate Zoology (second half) . 

Cell structure and division. 
Additional invertebrate types. 
Humanistic zoology. 
Systematic zoology. 



9 IV. Vertebrate Zool. and Physiology. 

Animal tissues. 

Skeleton and musculature of man. 

Dissection of type vertebrates. 

Nerves and sense organs. 

Comparative anatomy and evolution. 

Variation and selection. 

Racial welfare. 



Vocational. 10 

Ag. The science and vocation of agricul- 
ture. 

Dom. sci . 

Technical . 



Required. Recommended. 

Ag 1. 2, 3, (4), 5, (6), 7, (10), 

Dom. sci 1, 2, 3, (4), 5, (6), 7, (10). 

Man. and tech... 1, 2, 3, (4), 5, (6), (10). 
Gen. sei 1, 2, 3, 5, (6), 7, 8, 9. 



Elective. ^ Toted years. 



8, 9. 
8, 9. 
7. 
(4). 



,:.:. r 4V^ 

. 4% 
4V3 



4— ED. AGR. 



Part IIL— Equipment 



Chapter XIII. 

THE LABORATORY. 

"When they come into the school we do not put them into books; we 
take them into our laboratory. For instance, every boy and girl is put into 
the chemical laboratory and the physical laboratory, where they get the 
first principles of these things, so that they shall know something about 
air and water and soil. Then they begin to write about these things, and 
they begin to talk about them, and then gradually we introduce them to 
books; but we put the doing of the thing first all the way through." — 
H. B. Frissell, Hampton Institute. Quoted from Carlton, Education and 
Industrial Evolution, p. 195. 

In the smaller high school, where there is little likelihood of conflict of 
classes, as where one teacher has charge of most of the science work, the 
use of one large room as a combined laboratory and recitation room is 
preferred. Besides the actual saving of space and in nonduplication of 
apparatus, there is a saving of the instructor's time and work. And 
there is the added advantage of a tendency to unify the sciences and to 
keep all science classes in touch with each other's work, past and pro- 
spective — a result severely guarded against by the usual method of segre- 
gating classes and subjects. 

The use of agricultural materials in the teaching of the sciences will 
contribute to this purpose and emphasize the fact that sciences in the high 
school are of value chiefly as one knows their application, and the only 
way to know their application is to see and practice it. The class should 
see the setting up of each "experiment" and have a clear idea of what it 
is intended to demonstrate. And all work prepared and demonstrated at 
the expense of considerable time and labor should be seen by and ex- 
plained to all classes regardless of rank. 

Then .there is another pedagogic advantage in keeping the student in 
the presence of the demonstration, or at least of the apparatus, whereby 
the tendency of the recitation or review to become a mere verbal presenta- 
tion of what the text says may be avoided. This plan tends to facilitate 
the making of drawings and notes, thus keeping the textbook subordinate 
to the science. 

It may not be amiss to say that, since agriculture deals with gross 
and variable materials, the laboratory work in agriculture may easily be 
made more technical and exact than the occasion warrants. The teacher 
should remember that demonstration rather than experimentation is the 
purpose of the laboratory work. And in the sciences a similar mistake 

Some school laboratories are so perfect that they discourage the pupil 
in taking up investigations when thrown on his own resources. Im- 
perfect equipment often encourages ^ngenuity and originality. — Bailey: 
The Nature-Study Idea, p. 40. 

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62 



Western State Normal. 



is made by prescribing work from a printed laboratory guide which the 
student is unable to translate into action without great loss of time. The 
teacher would much better have a hand in the first presentation of every 
demonstration than to risk the loss of interest and time for the sake of 
teaching the "scientific method" by the more exact or technical sciences. 
After manual demonstration of the principle by the teacher the student 
may profitably repeat it for his own satisfaction and at his own expense 
of time. 

The science room should be near the ground, with easy access to out- 
doors, to a greenhouse, and to another room suitable as a storeroom, a 
shop, and a place for work with grosser materials. The accompanying 
plan (fig. 4) shows such a room with the details of furniture, the base- 
ment beneath it serving as the shop and storeroom. 

SCIENCE ROOM FOR A SMALL HIGH SCHOOL. 

vertical and horlroninl beams 

looker for apparatus 

sink — 

coarse balance.. ^ 

soil table 

and stock so I Is ^ 

blackboard - 



- - dwnonstra- 
tor's table 

. -chairs with 
wriiix)^ arms 



Green-| 

basement — - - 

nooo. 

oh Imney - -|h 

ctiewLcal sirpplies 
s'ink 





- shelves 



Chemiatry ^ 



table \ fine s 'blackboard 

open shelves for \ balance ^\ 

chefliical reagents laboratory de&k& 

Fig. 4. 



The requirements and equipment for tlie various Ijinds of worli will include the 
following: 

Biology: Plenty of north light, chairs, long table, individual drawers and shelves, 
museum, sink, instructor's blackboard. 

Chcmifiir^j: High desks with individual spaces, drawers, lockers and supplies, 
fine balance, sinks, reagent shelf, supply cupboard, table, hood. 

Soil Physics: Ignition hood, table, soil bins, blackboard, coarse balance, sink, 
upright and horizontal beams, proximity to chemistry and physics. 

Physics: Locker for apparatus, upright and horizontal beams, coarse balance, 
sink, demonstrator's table, blackboard. 

Oreenhoiisc: Light, heat, water, doors to laboratory, basement and outdoors. 

The chimney is so placed as to provide flues for the hood, the greenhouse and the 
basement. Its" necessitv is independent of the regular system of heating. Where 
gas may be had it should be provided, otherwise alcohol and gasoline may be used. 
The accompanying list of apparatus includes provision for both systems but con- 
templates the 'omission of such as is not needed, depending upon the availability 
of gas. 



Educational Agriculture. 



53 



For recitation purposes, chairs (with writing arms) sufficient to seat the largest 
class are placed in the open space facing the demonstrator's table and blackboard. 
This end of the room also contains maps, charts, library and museum. Some of the 
other features of furniture are shown in the accompanying figures. 




Fig. 5. 



The details shown In figure 5, In order from left to right, consist of: (a) hood 
for ignition, enclosing flue, cost, $7; (b) open shelves for chemical reagents, cost, $3; 
(c) shelf above sink for siphoning standard solutions, cost, $2.50; (d) draining board 
at end of sink, cost, $1.50; (e) shelf for fine balance, cost, $2. The figure also 
shows horizontal and vertical beams. No attempt is made to show these features in 
their proper relation as indicated In the previous illustration (fig. 4). 




Fig. 6. 



54 



Western State Normal. 



The locker for apparatus (fig. 6) is made of pine, witti flat top, base enclosed 
all around, dust-proof joints and doors, and coated with an oil stain. It is designed 
to accommodate all of the physics apparatus and the larger pieces of chemical appa- 
ratus; cost, $26. 

The remaining chemical apparatus, together with the glassware and chemicals, 
go into the cupboard of chemical supplies. Supplies peculiar to biology are accom- 
modated in the shelves and lockers of that department, while supplies peculiar to 
agriculture, as well as the tools, should be provided for in the basement, excepting 
such as are needed for the more careful soil work. 

In the selection of all of the equipment, a minimum cost, such as the 
smaller high school must consider, was constantly kept in mind. No 
school should expect to reduce this estimate and be able to do the char- 
acter of work contemplated. Instead it will probably be found necessary 
to provide more liberally for the duplication of apparatus where the in- 
dividuals of the class are assigned the same experiment. In the enumer- 
ation which follows, the lists are made complete, but where the same 
pieces may be used for several departments the price is given but once — in 
the list to which it most properly should be charged. 



Chemicals. ($35.78). Price. 

Sulphuric acid c. p., 4 lbs $0 75 

Hydrochloric acid c. p., 6 lbs 85 

Nitric acid c. p., 7 lbs 1 10 

Acetic acid, glacial, 2 lbs 1 02 

Oxalic acid, commercial, 1 lb 12 

Ammonium hydrate, 4 lbs 76 

chloride, 1 lb 34 

nitrate, 2 lbs 90 

alum, 1 lb 08 

Potassium alum, 1 lb 08 

hydrate, 2 lbs 60 

" carbonate (pearl ash) , 1 lb 15 

" sulphate crystals, 2 lbs 30 

" iodide cryst., pure, 2 oz 60 

" nitrate c. p., 1 lb 37 

" chloride c. p., 1 lb 37 

" permanganate c. p., 1 lb 70 

chlorate, cryst., 2 lbs 30 

Potassium, Vi oz 45 

Sodium, 8 oz 70 

" carbonate, crystal, 2 lbs 25 

" hydroxide, sticks, 3 lbs 75 

" nitrate c. p., 2 lbs 60 

" chloride, 2 lbs 10 

sulphate, 1 lb 10 

" sulphite, crystal, 1 lb 10 

Calcium chloride, anhydrous, fused, 3 lbs 60 

fluoride, 1 lb 10 

" sulphate, gypsum, 1 lb 10 

" sulphate, plaster of Paris, 5 lbs 15 

" oxide, quicklime, 3 lbs 30 

" carbonate, marble chips, 5 lbs 25 

Magnesium sulphate c. p., 1 lb 34 

" ribbon, 1 oz 60 

Ferrous sulphide, 1 lb 10 

Ferric chloride, 4 oz 15 

" sulphide, 5 lbs 35 

Iron filings, 2 lbs 10 

Copper foil, 1 lb 90 

nitrate, 8 oz 25 



Educational Agriculture. 55 

Copper oxide, 8 oz $0 35 

" sulphate, 5 lbs 50 

Barium chloride, crystals, 2 lbs 25 

" peroxide, Vz lb 35 

Lead nitrate, 1 lb 18 

" peroxide, 1 lb 36 

Red lead, 1 lb 12 

Mercury, 6 lbs 4 80 

Red oxide of mercury, 3 oz 30 

Mercuric oxide, 4 oz 40 

Silver foil, Vz oz 60 

" nitrate, 1 oz 50 

Carbon bisulphide, 1 lb 20 

Manganese dioxide, 95 per cent, 5 lbs 25 

Granulated tin, 1 lb 60 

Antimony, powdered, V2 lb 25 

Strontium chloride, 1 oz 10 

Bismuth, 1 oz 30 

Iodine crystals, pure, 2 oz 75 

Red phosphorus, 1 oz 15 

Yellow phosphorus, 8 oz 50 

Borax, 1 lb 18 

Zinc granules, 2 lbs 32 

Flowers of sulphur, 1 lb 08 

Roll sulphur, 5 lbs 25 

Bleaching powder, 1 lb 10 

Litmus, 1 oz 10 

Phenolphthalein, 1 oz 65 

Cochineal, 2 oz 16 

Alcohol, wood, %- gal 50 

" ethyl, 95 per cent, V2 gal 1 50 

" denatured, 2 gal 1 50 

Gasoline, 2 gal 40 

Corn starch, 1 lb 10 

Cane sugar, 2 lbs 20 

Bone black, 2 lbs 15 

Rosin, 1 lb 10 

Paraffin, 1 lb .- 15 

Tallow, 1 lb 15 

Beeswax, 1 lb 65 

Chemical Apparatus. ($52.72). 

Bunsen burners, 2 $0 66 

Gasoline burner. See "Agriculture." 

Spirit lamps, 4 oz., side tubulation, 4 1 20 

Asbestos mat, 24 x 18 x %6 66 

Wing tip for Bunsen burner 18 

Desiccator, 6-inch, with porcelain bottom 1 00 

Hessian crucibles, large 5's, 1 nest 18 

Royal Berlin crucibles with covers, 41 mm., 1 doz 2 00 

Pipe stem triangles. No. 4, 8 50 

Brass crucible tongs, 9-inch, 1 pair 48 

Tripods for spirit lamp, 2 50 

Pieces wire gauze, 5x5 inches, 2 30 

Copper retort, 2 pints 2 85 

Test tube holders, brass, 2 pairs 22 

Platinum wire, 4-inch, No. 26 30 

Blowpipe 20 

Deflagration spoon, 12 mm 11 

Sand bath, 6-inch 22 

Iron ring stands, 3 rings each, 2 1 10 



56 Western State Normal. 

Porcelain evaporating dishes, No. 7, S^^-inch, 8 $1 20 

Steel forceps, 6-inch, 1 pair 15 

Balance, "Kistler" 1 eg. to 100 g 12 00 

Brass weights in block, 1 eg. to 100 g., 1 set 1 35 

Brass forceps, 1 pair 16 

Test tube racks for 24 test tubes, 2 80 

Test tube brushes, with sponge, 3 25 

Test tube brushes, small, 3 12 

Lead dish, 3-inch 22 

Mortar and pestle, Wedgewood, 3-inch 44 

Wash bottles, complete, stopper and tubes, 24 oz., 2 1 00 

Gas generating bottles, complete, 3 1 50 

Calcium chloride tubes, 150 mm., 2 24 

Funnel stands, 4 holes each, 2 1 30 

Pneumatic trough 1 10 

Chemical thermometers, 10° to 110° c, 6 4 20 

Chemical thermometers, 20° to 200°, 2 2 00 

Earthenware slop jars, 3 gal., 2 60 

Asbestos wool, % lb 20 

Glass wool, fine, 4 oz 1 36 

Drying oven (at tinners) 3 50 

Horn scoop, 3 x 3% 22 

Horn spoon, 6-inch 18 

Piece magnetized clock spring, 6-inch 10 

Mohr's clamps, small, 2 22 

Mohr's clamps, medium, 2 30 

Hoffman's pinch cocks, 2 44 

Triangular file, rattail file 25 

Litmus paper, red and blue, 4 sheets 32 

Filter paper, 600 4-inch, 200 6-inch, 8 pkgs 1 00 

Corks, regular length, as follows: one doz. each Nos. 3 to 16 and 

18 and 20, 16 doz 2 54 

Cork borers, 1-6, 1 set 80 

Rubber tubing and rubber stoppers. See "Elementary Physics." 
Dropper bottles. See "Biology." 

Glassware, ($28.16). 

Test tubes of following sizes: 5 x 8, 50 cents; 6 x %, 56 cents; 

7 xVa, 80 cents; 2 doz. each $1 86 

Beakers 1 to 4, 6 nests 2 10 

Flasks 8 oz. and 16 oz., 3 each 1 02 

Erlenmeyer flask 6 oz., 4 72 

Thistle tube funnels, 4 27 

Funnels 60° 2% inches, % doz 54 

Funnels, 3-inch, 4-inch, 6-inch, 2 each 1 52 

Glass tubing, 3 ft. long, assorted, following sizes: %6» V4, ^Ae', 

6 lbs... 2 40 

Watch glasses, 3%-in., 4 37 

Retorts, 8 oz. with receivers, 2 74 

Square blue glass, 3x3,1 doz 91 

Stirring rods, 1 doz 16 

Burettes 50 cc, 2 2 20 

Pipette 25 cc. volumetric 25 

Pipette, Mohr's 10 cc. graduated 40 

Cylindrical graduates 100 cc, V2 doz 2 40 

Cylindrical graduates 25 cc, % doz 1 20 

Bottles wide mouth, "prescription," 32 oz., 8 oz., 4 oz., 1 doz. each. . 2 35 

Bottles "tincture" mushroom stopper, 32 oz., 16 oz., 8 oz., 1 doz ea., 4 35 

Bottles "salt mouth" mushroom stopper, 32 oz., 1 doz 2 40 



Educational Agriculture. 57 

Elementary Physics. ($30.65). 

Spirit level $1 25 

Model lifting pump 1 65 

Model force pump 2 00 

Meter sticks, brass tipped, % doz 1 40 

Lever holders, 3 1 20 

Universal weights, 1 set 2 00 

Brass pulleys with hooks, V^ doz 1 00 

Spring scales, % to 5 lbs. % doz 1 40 

Balance and weights. See "Chemical Apparatus." 

Capillary tubes, 1 set 95 

Hydrometer, paraffined stick 25 

Hydrometer. See Quevenne lac, "Agriculture." 

Hydrometer jar, 15x21/^ 40 

Thermometer. See "Chemical Apparatus." 

3-scale thermometer, F. R. C 80 

Hypsometer 3 00 

Protractor, metal ' 60 

Barometer tube with bend and bulb 55 

Boyle's law stand 2 00 

Hall's pressure gauge 95 

Glass tubes. See "Glassware." 

Rubber tubing, white, as follows: 12 ft. *A inch, 6 ft. %6 inch — 

18 ft 2 10 

Rubber tubing, red antimony, %6 inch, 6 ft 54 

Rubber stoppers as follows: 4 each 2-hole, Nos. 7, 8, 11 2 01 

4 solid. No. 6 35 

1 2-hole, No. 12 30 

Cork stoppers, flat, as follows: 1 doz. each, diameter 1%, 2, 2^^, 

2V2 inches, 4 doz 1 45 

Cork borers and cork stoppers, regular length. See "Chemical 

Apparatus." 

Sheet lead He inch, 5 lbs 64 

Mercury. See "Chemicals." 

Shot, No. 5, 5 lbs 40 

Assorted rubber bands, 1 box 80 

Copper wire. No. 18, %lb 33 

Iron wire, soft. No. 28, 1 lb 18 

Spool each, silk thread, linen thread 15 

Biology. ($109.26). 

Microscopes, 2 $70 00 

Bell glasses, 14-inch, 2 gal., 2 3 30 

Tripod magnifiers, 1 doz 4 80 

Dissecting microscope 1 00 

Slides, 1 oz. cover glasses, 1 gross 1 90 

Razor 1 00 

Insect pins, 3 sizes, 300 39 

Dissecting sets (scalpel, scissors, forceps, 2 needles), % doz 5 00 

Formaldehyde 40 cents, ether 75 cents, potassium "cyanide" 45 

cents ; V2 lb. each 1 60 

Wide mouth, 8 oz. bottle. See "Glassware." 

Carbon bisulphide and potassium permanganate. See "Chemicals." 

Granite pans, 9 x 12, shallow, 1 doz 4 00 

Medicine droppers, 1 doz 45 

Dropper bottles, glass bulb, V2 doz 1 20 

Petri dishes, 10 3 00 

Agar-agar, 1 lb 1 00 

Chloroform, 1 lb 75 

Benzole, 6 oz 50 

Glycerine, 6 oz 20 



58 Western State Normal. 

Rochelle salts, 8 oz $0 10 

Battery jars, 9 x 12, 2 gal., 2 2 00 

Battery jars, 6 x 8, 1 gal., % doz 2 00 

Specie jars, gal., % doz 2 52 

Window glass, 10x10, 1 doz 1 00 

Lantern globes, % doz 1 00 

Assorted rubber bands, %, lb 80 

Gummed labels, 2 sizes, 2 boxes 25 

Silk thread, linen thread, flat corks, rubber tubing, rubber stop- 
pers. See "Elementary Physics." 
Thistle tubes, cork corers. See "Chemical Apparatus." 
Mosquito bar, white. See "Agriculture." 

Agriculture. ($102.90). 

Bucket spray, "Success" $7 00 

Extension rod, 8 ft 2 50 

Extension hose, 15 ft 1 50 

Nozzles, conical, "Vermorel," 50 cents, and "Mistry," $1 1 50 

Nozzle, flat, "Bordeaux" 35 

Pruning saw, adjustable 1 25 

Pole attachment for adjustable saw 75 

Piiming shears (grape), 50 cents, pruning knife, 50 cents 1 00 

Pruning shears, "Buckeye" 50 

Grafting chisel 50 

Mallet 15 

Budding knives, 2 doz 3 60 

Paris gi'een, copper sulphate, sulphur, lime 2 00 

Resin, beeswax, tallow. See "Chemicals." 

Centrifuge milk tester, 8 bottles 8 00 

Milk bottles for tester, 1 doz 1 50 

Cream bottles, 1/2 doz 1 00 

Skimmed milk bottles, V2 doz 3 00 

Acid measure 15 

Pipette 17.6 cc 20 

Quevenne lactometer 50 

Hydrometer jar. See "Elementary Physics." 

Sulphuric acid, sp. gr. 1.83, 27 lbs 2 40 

Corrosive sublimate tablets, 1 lb 1 25 

Soil auger 2 00 

Iron mortar ( V2 gal.) and pestle 1 00 

Sealing jars, "Lightning," quart, 1 doz 1 65 

Sealing jars, "Lightning," pint, 1 doz 1 50 

Farm level 15 00 

Rod 5 00 

Gasoline burner 2 75 

Soil capillarity tubes, glass, 5 ft. x 1% inches, V2 doz 3 00 

Di-ying oven 100° C, ci'ucibles, desiccator, slop jars, Bunsen vapor 
lamp, thermometers, brass tongs, balance. See "Chemical Ap- 
paratus." 

Percolators, qt., 2 1 00 

Small tin grocers' scoop 10 

Cylindrical gi'aduates. See "Glassware." 

Coarse balance (grocers') with weights % oz. to 4 lbs 3 00 

Small granite pans, circular, % doz 90 

Iron pans and troughs (at tinners) 3 00 

Sand, sawdust, muslin, cheesecloth, mosquito net, cotton thread. ... 1 00 

Specie jars. See "Biology." 

Shot, spirit level. See "Elementary Physics." 

Sample soil 28, 1 set 1 50 

Economic seeds, 1 set 1 50 

Weed seeds, 1 set 1 50 

Smooth dinner plates, 1 doz 1 20 



Educational Agriculture. 59 

Vials, 2 drachms, 85 cents, stoppers, 15 cents, 1 gross $1 00 

Brass gauze sieves, 5 sizes, 1 set 5 50 

Tripod magnifiers, 1 doz. See "Biology." 

Flower pots, % gal., with saucers, 2 doz 1 70 

Steel tape, 50 ft 2 50 

Muriate of potash, acid phosphate, ground rock phosphate, bone 

meal, lime, limestone 5 00 

Magnesium sulphate, potassium sulphate, ammonium sulphate, 

ferric chloride. See "Chemicals." 

Tools. ($6.87). 

Hollow handle tool $1 12 

Vise, small 75 

Hatchet 50 

Saw 1 30 

Brace and bits 1 00 

Square 30 

Combined pliers and wire cutters 85 

Pincers, small 25 

Whetstone 45 

Iron wire, No. 24 and No. 18, 1 lb each 35 

In the selection of materials for laboratory use the appropriate ma- 
terials in agriculture will, of course, be such as represent the agricul- 
tural interests of the locality. It is apparent to any one that a practical 
course demands this. But in the teaching of the fundamental sciences 
a change from former methods may not be so readily acceded to by 
science teachers. The ideal herein conceived is, that since the best 
method of illustrating any unknown fact or principle is by means of 
familiar rather than unfamiliar materials, and since with the majority 
of students, famihar materials are agricultural materials, economy dic- 
tates the use of what the rural environment affords so far as possible 
in the teaching of all sciences, and no science should be attempted that 
cannot be demonstrated by some means. Or, stated from the practical 
point of view, since the science of agriculture depends upon all of the 
fundamental sciences, the only way to put agricultural instruction on 
a safe, rational basis, is to correlate it with the underlying sciences and 
teach them together, without attempting to draw any very sharp line 
to indicate when we pass from the cultural to the industrial use. 

Where agricultural needs are made the sole criteria for the admission 
of principles or materials for the teaching of the fundamental sciences 
certain portions of those sciences remain incomplete. With more ad- 
vanced students, whose interest may be mainly scientific, other things 
must be introduced to supplement the purely agricultural. Such need 
should be less frequent during the first half of the high-school course. 

Physics is a science which has developed to such dimensions by 
natural growth that no high school can do in one year all of the work 
outlined in the average text and which is recognized as secondary in 
character. It has, at the same time, become more quantitative, involving 
application of the mathematics of the high school, thus being forced into 
the latter part of the course. 

Certain elementary phases of physics are essential to an understanding 
of the other sciences. For this reason elementary physics is provided 
for in the preceding list of apparatus, using the needs of physical geog- 



60 Western State Normal. 

raphy and agriculture as criteria of what to admit and deferring the 
remainder of the subject to the latter part of the course in mathematics. 
This puts the subject of advanced physics outside the purposes of this 
treatment. But since, in a consideration of the laboratory, it is ap- 
propriate to allow space for the equipment for this subject, the appended 
list of apparatus is given to indicate what the subject may call for in 
the smaller schools. It is given with the understanding that the expense, 
while severely minimized, is in no way chargeable to the purposes of 
agriculture. 

Advanced High-school Physics. ($73.13). 

Jolly balance $6 00 

Rotator 6 65 

Ring chain and cylinder 85 

Acoustic and color disk 3 00 

Dynamo and motor 3 35 

Tuning fork; A, 20 cents, small C, 20 cents. ... 40 

Medium C 75 

Sonometer 7 50 

Clock spring 10 

Zinc and copper strips 05 

Concave and convex mirror, 75 mm 50 

Triangular glass prism, 6-in . 50 

Plane mirror 25 

Six-inch bar magnets, 2 60 

Horseshoe magnet, 4-in 20 

Dry cells, 3 90 

Electro-magnet 1 50 

Demonstration battery 1 00 

Copper wire, cotton insulated, 2 oz. No. 26. . . . 36 

1 oz. No. 30 ... . 27 

Dissectable dynamo 2 50 

Gravity cell, crowfoot Cu. and Zn 90 

OPTIONAL. 

Air pump $35 00 



Chapter XIV. 

PLOTS AND GROUNDS. 

"By every legitimate means 7ve should develop and fix local attach- 
Tnents. We have almost come to be a nation of wanderers and shifters. 
We are in danger of losing some of our affection for particular pieces 
of land." — Bailey: Training of Teachers of Agriculture, p. 11. 

"In past conceptions of democracy the idea of rewards has had no 
place." — Dr. Aldrich : A Redefinition of Democracy. 

In presenting the following plans for school grounds and plots, certain 
needs and conditions of general application are taken into consideration. 

The lack of attachment to particular pieces of land is fatal to the ideal- 
ization of agriculture as a mode of life. The lack of continuity of tenure 
is a serious impairment of all school work, and will especially be true of all 
agricultural work. The most vital period in the care of plots comes in 
the ordinary summer vacation period. The lack of respect for public 
property is characteristic of the average American, and often amounts 
to a feeling that what belongs to the public may be despoiled with im- 
punity by any member of the public. The feeling of individual ownership 
and prospect of financial reward for care and labor bestowed are essen- 
tial factors in the success of any economic enterprise. 

The agriculturist of the high school should not simply be an employee 
of the community, but should be a citizen, and thus be in an attitude to 
both give and receive information and neighborly assistance. He should 
be provided a home on the school grounds, with sufficient space to con- 
duct horticultural work profitably during the summer vacation, the 
proceeds to be his own, the lessons to be the property of the community, 
and no demonstration to be considered complete until its ability to pro- 
duce a profit is tested. His employment should be by the year and his 
wages in twelve monthly payments. He should be held for vacation 
service and pay rental on his home. His private grounds should be 
open to the public at stated hours and always display lessons worthy of 
their attention, while the line marking his boundaries should be respected 
at all times. Such grounds afford the means of demonstrating the best 
horticultural practices, including the use of hotbeds and cold frames, 
the kitchen garden, small fruit, varietal merits, seed selection, decorative 
and landscape planting, and poultry husbandry. 

School gardens belong peculiarly to the elementary grades. Where 
the high school is associated with the elementary grades, the agricul- 
turist may be called upon to supervise such work on the grounds. No 
attempt will here be made to discuss that grade 6f work. For the high- 
school student, work of a similar character is included under the term 
"home projects," where it will be found discussed. However, room for 

The school building has about it a natural environment. It ought to be 
in a garden, and the children from the garden would be led on to sur- 
rounding fields, and then into the wider country, with all its facts and 
forces. — Dewey: The School and Society, p. 89. 

(61) 



62 



Western State Normal. 



Series I. Rotation and Fertilizers, suited to latitude 36°. 

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(.clover and grass ^ 



Fig. 7. 



The order of succession on each range Is as follows : First year, cowpeas are 
sown in the spring and disposed of either by harvesting, as indicated by the word 
"off," or plowed "under." This is done in "time to prepare the range for wheat. 
With the wheat is sown red clover or alsike and in the spring .a suitable grass seed. 
The clover and grass are allowed to run until the second spring after the wheat is 
harvested. (In farm practice it may run as pasture a year longer, making a flve- 
year rotation.) The grass is turned under the spring of the corn year. After har- 
vesting the corn the mineral fertilizer is applied, as shown on the cowpea range — 



Educational Agriculture. 63 

some form of gardening may be allowed out of grounds not otherwise 
needed, to be intensively cultivated by those high-school students who 
cannot be provided for elsewhere, and each should be held accountable 
for the condition of his allotment. 

The remaining work consists of field demonstrations intended to 
illustrate the class work or to influence local agricultural practices. Of 
the two series here provided, the lesser will be considered first. 

Series II vvill include desirable introductions new to the locality, and 
new varieties of well-known species. It should include demonstrations 
suited to the coming change toward more intensive cultivation, such as 
soiling crops, catch crops and winter cover crops, legumes, forage and 
grasses, besides the cereals and fiber crops. This plan contemplates 
the demonstrating of horticulture and fruit husbandry on the agricul- 
turist's private plots. It will be seen that for several reasons it is 
impossible to indicate very accurately how much land will be needed 
for this series. 

Series I, rotations and fertilizers, is a very important demonstration, 
becoming more valuable with age. It should be carefully planned and the 
record of its purposes and results passed to and made a charge upon 
succeeding agriculturists, that its cumulative value may not be impaired 
through ignorance or carelessness. It consists of four parallel ranges 
meant to illustrate simultaneously the four annual phases of a four-year 
rotation suitable to the locality, each crop holding its place in order as 
they pass from right to left, as shown in figure 7. Each range consists 
of twelve plots, planned to illustrate need, effect and methods of applica- 
tion of fertilizers. These plots have the same arrangement on all four 
of the parallel ranges, so that the effect of a similarity of treatment on 
different crops may be observed in each strip of four plots crossing the 
ranges at right angles. The corn and wheat ranges may at the same 
time be used as variety tests. 

The ground chosen for this series should be of uniform character, so 
that all differences in growth may be attributed to the difference in treat- 
ment. A check plot at each end of each range tends to betray any gen- 
eral lack of uniformity, while affording a basis upon which to figure the 
effects of the various treatments. 

The significance of the five important factors, humus, lime, nitrogen, 
phosphorus, and potassium, is demonstrated in this series. While the 
immense importance of barnyard manure may seem to be minimized, it 

the application being made but once for the entire rotation. Follow the corn by a 
winter cover crop of rye, to be turned under in the spring, when lime is applied to 
the right half of each range and cowpeas again sown. This application of fertilizers 
and lime, coming between the corn crop and the cowpea crop, occurs on each range 
but once in four years, but as the series has four ranges, each showing an annual 
phase of the rotation, they are applied on one range each year. And in the begin- 
ning of the demonstration, where crops permit, they are applied simultaneously in 
fractional portions backward from the one on which full amount is due, thus : 

4. 4. -T-, -T. The figure necessarily shows the crops as having fixed positions 

4 4 4 4 

on the ranges, but it should be understood that the regular succession of crops will 
make the condition represented applicable but once in each four years. 

The size of each plot of series I is one-eightieth acre, being two rods long and one 
rod wide, with space between plots of one-fifth rod. This space may be cropped the 
same as the rest of the range if desired, but such crops should be removed and not 
allowed to confuse results. The total area within the plots is three-fifths of an 
acre, and the total area, including plots, boundary strips and roads, is nine-tenths 
of an acre, being 234.3 feet long and 168 feet wide. 



64 Western State Normal. 

should be apparent that, containing, as it does, humus and the three es- 
sential elements of fertility, it can never be used as an accurate test of 
the soil's needs. A similar difficulty results from the use of legumes as a 
source of nitrogen, since the legume also supplies humus, which in turn 
may render available the insoluble phosphates of the soil. To make the 
test accurate, therefore, acid phosphate rather than the insoluble floats 
is used in all plots requiring phosphorus, except the one indicated other- 
wise. To further obviate these difficulties two plots are added to the 
series — one to demonstrate the use of manure and the other to demon- 
strate the effect of a nitrogen fertilizer that does not involve humus. 
Potassium is applied in the form of the muriate of potash, and nitrate of 
soda is used on the plot where humus is to be eliminated. In order to get 
usable results the same relative amounts of the different forms of nitro- 
gen or of phosphorus should be used on the plots to be compared, the 
application to be computed on the basis of the amount subtracted by the 
harvesting and removal of a maximum crop for the locality. Each plot 
has an application of lime or ground limestone on its right half. 

This treatment will be seen to be a compromise between approved 
practice and accuracy of soil testing, and is believed to be of sufficient 
scope to answer both purposes. Visible results during the growing sea- 
son will be as valuable as quantitative results made after harvest. 

The habit of weighing, measuring and testing articles of commerce is 
a good one to cultivate, and the establishment of stock scales at the school 
grounds may be made a means not only of studying fattening processes 
but of providing practice in all kinds of stock judging and of making the 
course more practicable for girls. And it will be the means of bringing 
to light the hidden genius of the stock judge, the expert guesser of 
weight, "mute, inglorious" thovigh he may otherwise be. 

For the entire purposes of the school ten acres should provide all of 
the necessary space for building site, playgrounds, athletic fields, stables, 
agriculturist's cottage and private grounds, field demonstration plots, 
and, possibly, school gardens and students' projects. 

The purpose of none of this work on the school grounds should be con- 
fused with that of the school farm, such as has been attempted in many 
places, usually without success for lack of the essential elements of the 
responsibility and profits of the work being with the worker, the student. 
The school here provided for is conceived to be one to which high-school 
boys go daily from their farm homes, and to their homes they are ex- 
pected to carry their lessons for application. 

In the division of expenses, those pertaining to the agriculturist's 
grounds should be borne by himself, the home projects by the students, 
and the others by the school. As a part of their course, students should 
be expected to contribute their services free at any place that the agri- 
culturist may reasonably direct — a matter that must be left to his dis- 
cretion. 



Chapter XY. 

AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE. 

"Of waking many books there is no end; and much study is a iveari- 
ness of flesh," — Eccles. 12:12. 

Nature of agricultural literature. — Owing to the fact that agricul- 
ture as a science is so recent, the literature of the subject is not yet 
well organized. This is due partly to the very wide scope of the sub- 
ject, the tendency toward unsymmetrical development that always results 
from rapid growth, the desire to seem busy which sometimes prompts 
investigators to publish half-baked results, the irresponsible publica- 
tion of a certain class of farm papers for popular use, and the false 
idea that prevails that what the schools want is textbooks on the art 
rather than the science of agriculture. But as the temptation to pre- 
pare scientific articles minus the science, merely to stimulate and appease 
a popular demand, gives way to more correct teachings, from the chaos 
emerges definite form, and standards are set up by which the value of 
all agricultural literature may be estimated. 

The textbook. — One of the most valuable contributions which the in- 
troduction of agriculture into the courses of the public schools may be 
expected to make to the cause of education in general is the breaking 
down of the formalism which has always been the bane of education, and 
which results through the operation of natural causes. 

This great danger to all education follows so closely upon the heels 
of this promising reform that in many places it has gotten ahead of 
the latter, and the teacher, impelled by a desire to take an immediate 
advantage of the popularity of the cause, and guided by what the 
biologist might call a "literary thigmotaxis," which prevents his resting 
easy until he is settled in his chair behind his desk with an "adopted" 
text in his useless hand, from which he is teaching all of the coarse 
print and omitting all of the exercises and all irrelevant-looking sen- 
tences cast in the imperative or interrogative form — teaching agricul- 

The function of books is supplementary, ... a means of seeing 
through other men what you cannot see for yourself; they (teachers and 
parents) are eager to give second-hand facts in place of first-hand facts. 

. . Not perceiving the enormous value of that spontaneous education 
which goes on in early years- — not perceiving that a child's restless obser- 
vation, instead of being ignored and checked, should be diligently admin- 
istered to, and made as accurate and complete as possible; they insist on 
occupying its eyes and thoughts with things that are, for the time being, 
incomprehensible and repugnant.— Spencer : Education, Chap. I. "What 
Knowledge is Most Worth?" 

So long have we taught text-book routine that we do not seem to 
think that there may be other and better means. ... I believe that it 
is possible to acquire culture at the same time that we acquire power. 
Education for culture alone tends to isolate the individual ; educa- 
tion for sympathy with one's environment tends to make the individual an 
integral part of the activities and progress of his time. — Bailey: The 
Nature-Study Idea, p. 63. 

5— ED. AGR. (65) 



66 Western State Normal. 

ture? No, teaching lies — one at least, which is that "agriculture" is a 
book. 

Books will always be the repository of knowledge, and the textbook 
in agriculture may have a place in the high school. But prior to the 
last year the appropriate text should be a manual of exercises adapted, 
by additions and subtractions, to suit the laboratory and local conditions. 
And such assignments as may be advantageous to supplement this 
method, by which the race has acquired all of its original stock of 
knowledge, should be made to sources as near this original source as 
possible — agricultural reports, bulletins and standard treatises. The 
objection to the average text during these years is that it will not only 
be made the course of study, but the source of information as well, at 
the time when the student should be making his own text in the form 
of a notebook containing the record of observations afforded by experi- 
ments, demonstrations and excursions. 

The proposition here urged is that the seasonal order of succession 
of local agricultural interests, and not the textbook, should determine 
the order of presentation within each year of the course, and if this 
can be maintained and the subject matter taken first-hand from the 
field and laboratory the danger of the text is successfully met. And 
the ability to do this successfully will not be found in the teacher who 
relies on one or any number of high-school or elementary texts for his 
preparation. In the last year of the course a suitable text may con- 
tribute very materially to the synthetic purposes whereby the "science 
of agriculture" is created and vocational ideals inculcated. For work 
previous to that year it would be a boon if there were worked out an 
adequate set of agricultural monographs suitable for high-school use, 
providing an elastic system adaptable to local interests and the seasonal 
order of presentation. 

The farm paper. — The fai-m paper has a limited place in the agri- 
cultural literature of the high school. Standing in a class by itself. 
The Breeders' Gazette has a wide value as a stock paper and as rep- 
resenting the broader agriculture of the country, and is the last journal 
which any enforced economy of the school should eliminate. Conforming 
as it does to the teachings of the experiment stations, it is scientifically 
reliable and stands for applied science without being either unscientific 
or impractical. Crops, being subject more to environmental conditions, 
are usually best represented by papers that undertake to serve a more 
limited constituency, and each distinct region will have its best repre- 
sentative paper, possibly of restricted geographical value, though that 
test alone would be a very inadequate one. Two or three properly se- 
lected papers will serve the needs of the school and the locality better 
than might a larger number. 

It is hard, and in the history of the race a late change, to receive 
language through the eye which reads instead of through the ear which 
hears. . . . The printed page must not be too suddenly or too early 
thrust between the child and life. — Hall: Adolescence, vol. II, p. 461. 

With a distrust of "book larnin' " that has become proverbial, it is 
strange that it has been allowed to dominate the school curriculum so 
completely. — Hodge: Nature Study and Life, p. 22. 



Educational Agriculture. 67 

The farm paper is of value to the school for other reasons than those 
which pertain to the quantity of the information it may give. The pro- 
spective farmer needs lessons on the function and possibilities of a good 
journal, and an early and continued affiliation with one has a value 
similar to the value of a lifelong friend. With a reliable farm paper 
in the hands of his students, the instructor will feel held to the necessity 
of keeping his pedagogical feet on the ground. By its "answers to cor- 
respondents" it will indicate the nature of the everyday problems of the 
farmer. And its weekly change of subject matter will be a valuable 
index to the seasonal order of class topics. 

But the slavish study of the mass of practical matter which such a 
periodical undertakes to set before practical farmers will be a detriment 
to the student training for that profession. On analysis, its contents 
will be found to involve but few scientific principles underlying agri- 
cultural industry, and to these the teacher should guide more directly 
through the agricultural side of the work in applied science as indicated 
in the course included herein. Such rationalizing principles should also 
give the student an ability to understand agriculture in the original form 
in which the investigator, out of respect for his work, must present it, 
the bulletin, as well as enable him to detect the false science which ap- 
pears in irresponsible farm journals and more responsible sources. Time 
enough when the vocation is taken up after school days are over to 
consider the many practical methods and facts presented by the farm 
paper and when, if the reader fails to see what he wants, he has only 
to ask for it. 

Bulletins and government reports. — Whatever the source of the science 
or the method of acquiring or applying it, the series of publications by the 
United States Department of Agriculture, known as Farmers' Bulletins, 
judging by the very evident intention of its editors, is to be made the 
repository of everything for the betterment of the science and practices 
of rural life. While innumerable other sources of information are avail- 
able to the student or investigator, none other has so clearly for its aim 
the summarizing of everything achieved by investigations and tested by 
experience. It may therefore be expected to satisfy the need of general 
practical information for such schools as the one herein conceived, sup- 
plementing the regular instruction in the principles of agriculture by 
means of demonstrations and reliable texts as directed by a teacher 
trained for the work. 

For general agricultural progress, the annual report of the Secretary 
of Agriculture, published in the Yearbook of the Department of Agricul- 
ture, is invaluable. And the general articles of the Yearbook contributed 

The mere giving of information about agricultural objects and practices 
can have very little good result with children. . . . It is to be hoped 
that no country-life teaching will be so narrow as to put only technical 
farm subjects before the pupil. . . . 

We need also to be careful not to introduce subjects merely because 
practical grown-up farmers think that the subjects are useful and there- 
fore should be taught. Farming is one thing and teaching is another. 
What appeals to the man may not appeal to the child. What is most 
useful to the man may or may not be most useful in training the mind of 
a pupil in school. — Bailey: Training for Teachers of Agriculture, p. 15. 



68 



Western State Normal. 



by experts and well illustrated are not excelled by anything in the best 
magazines, while the regular statistical departments furnish a wealth of 
material for agricultural geography, arithmetic and general knov/ledge. 

The bulletins of the state experiment stations, which, like the Farmers' 
Bulletins and the Yearbook, are furnished free of charge, are of value in 
giving results of investigations that have a local interest in the state of 
their publication. While they are less comprehensive than the Farmers' 
Bulletins in the variety of matters presented, their lessons are more con- 
crete, and, for schools, their method of investigation often worthy of study 
considered merely as experiments. 

Such publications as the foregoing should constitute the principal 
portion of the agricultural library in every high school supported by and 
for an agricultural constituency. Since the bound volumes of the Year- 
book and the text and reference books are carefully indexed, they require 
of the librarian merely room and protection. But the one whose business 
it is to receive and preserve in accessible form for convenient reference 
the bulletins and other miscellaneous pamphlets that regularly come to a 
library will need the experience of some one who has had to consider this 



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cultur 



fscries and. 
-\r»un-iber of 
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numloecof 
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Fig. 8. 



The material used In making a 1)0X consists of what bookbinders know as No. 20 
binding board, which comes in sheets, 26 x .S8 inches, one of which will cut four 
sheets of the desired size, IT^xlQi^ inches. As the material is very dense and 
tough it should be cut in the bindery where purchased. Such material should cost 
not to exceed Ave cents per box. The top and bottom of each box consist of poplar 
or soft pine strips, each 10i/^x2i4x% inches, planed and sandpapered. To bend 
the board around these strips it should be cut half through its thickness on the 



Educational Agriculture. 69 

problem, and assuming that the reader has had little, if any, a plan will be 
set forth, borrowed from various sources, modified to suit the needs of the 
case and tested by some experience. 

Care of literature; the box. — In seeking for a basis of classification — 
a general law running throughout the subject — one may easily overlook 
the very patent fact that bulletins are fortunately all of about the same 
dimensions. And this physical unity is the best one to consider in ar- 
ranging them on the shelf. For this purpose boxes should be provided as 
shown in the figures on preceding page. 

Indexing. — Without some convenient and accurate means of going di- 
rect to the desired information, a collection of four or five hundred agri- 
cultural bulletins would be of little value for school or practical use. The 
valuable fact or process would be almost as inaccessible when needed as 
the proverbial "needle in a haystack." 

Since the average bulletin is apt to treat of a number of distinct topics, 
and therefore any considerable number of them cannot be grouped topic- 
ally, the only systematic plan is to group them serially with a separate 
index of some kind, under the appropriate divisions of which any bulletin 
may be recorded by its title and serial number as many times as it in- 
cludes distinct topics. This makes necessary the adoption of a system of 
classifying the general subject "agriculture" into its constituent depart- 
ments or subheads. 

The Dewey system of classification is comprehensive enough to in- 
clude all knowledge, but its extension for agricultural purposes would 
necessarily dissect and distribute the subject matter on its scientific 
rather than on its economic aspect and thus, it is feared, work at cross- 
purposes to the establishment of vocational ideals. And becavise this sub- 
ject, as developed, is inevitably tending to include not simply farming but 
all phases of rural mechanics, industrial processes, hygiene, and even rural 
society and education, in addition to all of the fundamental sciences, the 
literature is too involved to submit to a purely scientific dissection and 
classification. Therefore it cannot be made to fit in with any already 
established order of knowledge, but demands a complete separate system 
of classification as comprehensive as country life itself. 

parallel lines 2^4 inches apart, shown running across the center of each hoard. The 
hoard is bent with the cut side out and secured to the strips with small %-inch 
wire nails with flat heads. The gaping wounds at the corners of the box are healed 
hy strips of dark passe partout. Labels for the general and serial titles may be 
typewritten on light-weight cardboard, using different shades for different series of 
the latter. The bottom "label — the l)ox number — is cut from a calendar page. 

Such a box when completed will hold thirty Farmers' Bulletins, and this size 
will be found a good compromise of economy, convenience and taste. The bulletins, 
arranged in serial order, are wrapped over sides and loose edges with a piece of 
manila before shoving into the box. 

A system of classification of agricultural literature has been developed in the 
United States Office of Experiment Stations under conditions favorable to the 
present and prospective needs of agriculture. This office has been compelled for the 
past twenty years to consider for its own uses just the problem here discussed, and 
the result is "a decimal system of classification under thirteen heads, instead of the 
nine which the Dewey system requires. The system is used in all public libraries 
where bulletins are pVeserved. A key to the system is issued as circular No. 23, 
Office of Experiment Stations. The accompanying key is condensed to about one- 
sixth the original length, in which form the writer uses and recommends it for high 
schools The changes from the original consist of substitution of "Agricultural 
Education" for "12, Statistics of the Stations," and the development of "13, Mis- 
cellaneous " into "Agricultural Economics," the omission of all fractional sub- 
divisions linder all integral headings excepting Nos. 5, 6 and 7 and a general abbre- 



70 Western State Normal. 

vi.itiou of the latter. Necessarily in abbreviating many fractions were dropped, 
their subject heads being thrown back into the next preceding number. Thus 5.22, 
as shown here comprises all included under 5.22, 5.23, 5.24 and 5.25 of the complete 
system. In deciding on the elimination of certain numbers and the incorporation of 
their contents under other numbers the following rules were regarded : only adjacent 
groups were combined; only closely related subjects were combined: the amount of 
literature on a subject partly determined the practicability of combining it with 
another — the less the amount the better the reason for combining. A careful con- 
sideration of all of the literature showed the necessity of interpolating in a few 
cases, as 5.01 and 5.18, which do not appear in the original system. With these 
alterations the original plan was preserved, so that familiarity with one is of value 
in using either. 

Chart V. 
Condensed Key to Index of Agricultural Bulletins and- Circulars. 

pages space. 

1. General Sciences 1 

2. Air and Water ; purity 1 

3. Soils; composition, classification, tillage, improvement 4 

4. Fertilizers ; sources, composition, use, experiments 7 

5.01 Plants; physiology, general, medicinal, improvement 2 

.14 Field crops; Commercial; cereals, fibers, sugar, tobacco ... 8 

.18 Secondary ; grass, hay, forage, silage catch 6 

.21 Horticulture; vegetables, melons 7 

.22 Fruit, nuts 7 

.26 Flowers; greenhouses, landscape 2 

.3 Forestry 2 

.4 Seeds 5 

.5 Weeds 2 

.6 Diseases; remedies 5 

6.1 Foods; composition, nutritive value 8 

.3 Preparation, use, accessories, beverages, adulteration .... 5 

.7 Preservation 4 

7.1 Animals; physiology, general, wild, improvement 2 

.3 Production; stock, fowls, fish, invertebrates, rations 11 

.4 Diseases; veterinary 4 

8. Entomology; beneficial, injurious, repression 7 

9. Dairying ; milk and its products 4 

10. Technology; manufacturing (not farm processes) 2 

11. Agricultural Engineering; materials, fuel, power, irrigation, 

drainage, implements, devices, roads, bridges, fences, 
buildings ^ 

12. Agricultural Education ; courses, methods, equipment 3 

13. Economics; general statistics, rural, home, hygienic, social, 

comparative agriculture 4 



Educational Agriculture. 



71 




"nwiiMiiiiiiuiinniiiiiiinmiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiimmiim/iiiiu*: 



it ion, U6e,6xper//rfents 












VW\J^ CUi o- 



jxAjtk^tqjiAJ 




Fig. 9. 



In application of the system, the bulletin or other unindexed pamphlet is scanned 
and on the front cover are written Arabic numerals corresponding to such of the 
twenty-six topics of the key as are found treated inside. Thus Farmers' Bulletin 
129, "Sweet Potatoes," should be labeled 5.21, 5.6, 6.1, 6.3 and 8, because, In addi- 
tion to the subject indicated in its title, it treats of plant diseases, nutritive value, 
preparation and use, and injurious insects. 

The index sho%\-n in figure 9 is made of a well-bound blank book 71/2x91/2 
inches, containing 120 pages with twenty-five lines to the page, and with the 
twenty-six subject headings so entered as to divide the contents into as many parts, 
each proportional in space to the number of entries that are to be made under it. 
Taking the bulletins in serial order, each title and serial number should be entered 
under all the subject headings treated in it, as indicated on the cover. A sample 
page of the index is shown, which also shows the numerical marginal labels. With 
the accompanying key pasted inside the front cover, on opening the index both key 
and the marginal labels will be exposed to view. It will be noted that only integers 
are shown on the marginal thumb labels, such mixed numerals as 5.21 coming 
between the 5 and 6 labels. This gives thirteen marginal numbers, though there 
are twenty-six subdivisions of the index. Figure 9 shows how to cut the leaf 
margins and where to paste the numerals, which are cut from a calendar leaf. 

Owing to the overlapping of such subjects as "field crops" and "horticulture," it 
may be necessary to index the same matter under two subject headings. In case of 
doubt a safe rule for the Inexperienced is to make the entry under these several 
probable headings. 

A pigeonhole card-index system has been used by the writer, and, while more 
elastic than the blank-book method, on the whole Is decidedly less desirable, pro- 
vided the book index be sufficiently large and the space equitably apportioned under 
the several heads. Experience has shown that the book described is ample for the 
purpose if it be apportioned as indicated on the right-hand margin of the key. This 
apportionment is based on the first 300 numbers of the Farmers' Bulletins. After 
one series of bulletins has been indexed down to some convenient recent date others 
in turn are entered until every pamphlet worth the space is recorded and boxed. 



72 



Western State Normal. 

lo ft. >| 






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T 


M -■' 


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<M 




1 






Li-.-.iz: 


n 




> ' 


U-- ------ 


V 




1 




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Fig. 10. 

The case. — Having been properly indexed and boxed, a home for this literature 
is next to be provided. The accompan.ving illustration (fig. 10) shows a case suffi- 
cient for the agricultural and science liln-ary and museum. It can be made of pine 
without doors for nine or ten dollars and of oak for about eleven dollars. Doors as 
shown, with glass panels, double the cost. The writer has had materials for such a 
case made at a planing mill without mortising and with tongue and groove (ceiling) 
back and shipped to destination, where it was easily set up and stained by pupils 
of a little manual skill. 

This case provides ample room for the boxes on one shelf, leaving the bottom 
shelf for an agricultural museum of minerals, soils, fertilizers, feeds, seeds, 
herbarium, and insects. The top shelf is for the accompanying list of recom- 
mended agricultural reference Iiooks and the second shelf for yearbooks and reports. 
The index to the bulletins should be kept in the shelf with them and contain a 
record of all the literature on that shelf. Bound volumes having indexes should not 
be indexed in this system. 

Assignments on agricultural topics may be made by the teacher and the index 
should enable the pupils to find the latest and most practical information on the 
subject. A blank card should be inserted in each box on which to record names and 
dates of loaning and returning. Whatever such a collection properly indexed may 
lack of being a complete encyclopedia of agricultural science and practice is a defect 
that time will make good. 



Educational Agriculture. 73 



LIST OF BOOKS SUITABLE FOR A HIGH-SCHOOL 
AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY. 



Hemenway: School Gardens. 
Davis: Rural School Agriculture. 
Warren: Elements of Agriculture. 
Barto: Secondary School Agriculture. 
Osterhout: Experiments with Plants. 
King: The Soil. 

Physics of Agriculture. 
Irrigation and Drainage. 
Eliot: Engineering for Land Drainage. 
Warington: Physical Properties of the Soil. 
Hall: The Soil. 
Stockb ridge: Rocks and Soils. 

Hopkins: Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture. 
Johnson: How Crops Grow. 
How Crops Feed. 
Voorhees: Fertilizers. 
Roberts : The Fertility of the Land. 
Vivian: Principles of Soil Fertility. 
Hilgard: Soils. 

De Condolle : Origin of Cultivated Plants. 
Hunt: The Cereals in America. 

Forage and Fiber Crops in America. 
Spillman: Farm Grasses in the United States. 
Myrick: The Book of Corn. 
Eraser: The Potato. 
Bailey: Principles of Fruit Growing. 

The Nursery Book. 

The Pruning Book. 

Garden Making. 

Horticulturists' Rule Book. 
Craig: Judging Live Stock. 
Plumb: Types and Breeds of Farm Animals. 
Davenport: Principles of Breeding. 
Henry: Feeds and Feeding. 
Smith: Profitable Feeding. 
Van Norman: First Lessons in Dairying. 
Wing: Milk and its Products, 
Conn: Germ Life in the Soil. 

Bacteria, Yeasts, and Molds in the Home. 
Bashore: Sanitation of the Country House. 
Fuertes: Water and Public Health. 
Snyder: The Chemistry of Plant and Animal Life. 
Lipman: Bacteria in Relation to Country Life, 
Sanderson: Insects Injurious to Staple Crops. 
Insects Injurious to Garden Crops. 



Western State Normal. 

Sanderson : Insects Injurious to Fruits. 

Davidson and Chase: Farm Machinery and Farm Motors. 

Wing: Farm Dwellings. 

Roberts: The Farmstead. 

Waugh: Landscape Gardening. 

Van Rensaeller: Art Out of Doors. 

Bailey: Cyclopedia of Agriculture (four volumes) . 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



■i\i lif 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



002 782 246 



